ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK -JOHN-G-BOURKE BANCROFT LIBRARY < THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA e GENERAL GEORGE CROOK. ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK JOHN G-r^OURKE, I? CAPTAIN THIBD CAVALRY, U. 8. A. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1891 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York UD..ARY TO FRANCIS PARKMAN, whose learned and graceful pen has illustrated the History, Traditions, Wonders and Resources of the Great West, this volume, descriptive of the trials and tribulations, hopes and fears of brave officers and enlisted men of the regular Army, who did so much to conquer and develop the empire beyond the Missouri, is affectionately inscribed by his admirer and friend, JOHN G. BOURKE. Omaha, Nebraska, August 12, PKEFACE. THEEE is an old saw in the army which teaches that you can never know a man until after having made a scout with him in bad weather. All the good qualities and bad in the human make up force their way to the surface under the stimulus of privation and danger, and it not infrequently happens that the comrade who at the military post was most popular, by reason of charm of manner and geniality, returns from this trial sadly lowered in the estimation of his fellows, and that he who in the garrison was most retiring, self -composed, and least anxious to make a display of glittering uniform, has swept all before him by the evidence he has given of fortitude, equanimity, courage, coolness, and good judgment under circumstances of danger and distress. But, whether the maxim be true or false, it is hardly too much for me to claim a hearing while I recall all that I know of a man with whom for more than fifteen years, it was my fortune to be inti mately associated in all the changing vicissitudes which consti tuted service on the "border" of yesterday, which has vanished never to return. It is not my purpose to write a biography of my late friend and commander such a task I leave for others to whom it may be more congenial ; speaking for myself, I am compelled to say that it is always difficult for me to peruse biography of any kind, especially military, and that which I do not care to read I do not care to ask others to read. In the present volume, there will be found collected descriptions of the regions in which the major v j PREFACE. portion of General Crook's Indian work was carried on; the people, both red and white, with whom he was brought into contact ; the difficulties with which he had to contend, and the manner in which he overcame them ; and a short sketch of the principles guiding him in his justly famous intercourse with the various tribes from British America to Mexico, from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean subjugated by him and afterwards placed under his charge. A military service of nearly forty consecutive years all of which, excepting the portion spent in the civil war, had been face to face with the most difficult problems of the Indian question, and with the fiercest and most astute of all the tribes of savages encountered by the Caucasian in his conquering advance across the continent made General Crook in every way worthy of the eulogy pronounced upon him by the grizzled old veteran, General William T. Sherman, upon hearing of his death, that he was the greatest Indian-fighter and manager the army of the United States ever had. In all the campaigns which made the name of George Crook a beacon of hope to the settler and a terror to the tribes in hostility, as well as in all the efforts which he so successfully made for the elevation of the red man in the path of civilization and which showed that Crook was not a brutal soldier with no instincts save those for slaughter, but possessed of wonderful tenderness and commiseration for the vanquished as well as a most intelligent appreciation of the needs and capabilities of the aborigines, I was by his side, a member of his military staff, and thus obtained an insight into the charms and powers of a character which equalled that of any of the noble sons of whom our country is so justly proud. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE OLD CAMP GRANT ON THE RIO SAN PEDRO DAILY ROUTINE OF LIFE ARCHITECTURE OF THE GILA SOLDIERS AS LABORERS THE MESCAL AND ITS USES DRINK AND GAMBLING RATTLESNAKE BITES AND THE GOLONDRINA WEED SODA LAKE AND THE DEATH VALLEY FELMER AND HIS RANCH. 1 CHAPTER II. STRANGE VISITORS SOME APACHE CUSTOMS MEXICAN CAPTIVES SPEEDY AND THE GHOST THE ATTACK UPON KENNEDY AND ISRAEL'S TRAIN FINDING THE BODIES THE DEAD APACHE A FRONTIER BURIAL HOW LIEUTENANT YEATON RECEIVED HIS DEATH WOUND ON THE TRAIL WITH LIEUTENANT GUSHING REVENGE IS SWEET. . . .17 CHAPTER III. THE RETURN TO CAMP GRANT LANCED TO DEATH BY APACHES THE KILL ING OF MILLER AND TAPPAN COMPANY QUARTERS APACHE CAPTIVES THE CLOUD-BURST APACHE CORN-FIELDS MEETING COLONEL SAN- FORD ENTRAPPED IN AN APACHE AMBUSCADE AN OLD-TIMER'S REM INISCENCES OF TUCSON FUNERAL CROSSES ON THE ROADSIDE PADRE EUSEBIO KINO FIRST VIEW OF TUCSON THE " SHOO FLY" RESTAU RANT. 34 CHAPTER IV. SOME OF THE FRIENDS MET IN OLD TUCSON JACK LONG HIS DIVORCE MARSHAL DUFFIELD AND "WACO BILL" "THEM 'ERE'S MEE VISITIN* KEE-YARD" JUDGE TITUS AND CHARLES o. BROWN HOW DUFFIELD WAS KILLED UNCLE BILLY N AND HIS THREE GLASS EYES AL. GARRETT DOCTOR SEMIG AND LIEUTENANT SHERWOOD DON ESTEVAN OCHOA BISHOP SALPOINTE PETE KITCHEN AND HIS RANCH. . . 66 CHAPTER V. THE DIVERSIONS OF TUCSON THE GAMBLING SALOONS BOB CRANDALL AND HIS DIAMOND " SLAP-JACK BILLY" TIGHT-ROPE WALKERS THE THEATRE THE DUENAS BAILES THE NEWSPAPERS STAGE-DRIVERS. 80 yiii CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER VI. TUCSON INCIDENTS THE " FIESTAS "THE RUINED MISSION CHURCH OF SAN XAVIER DEL BAC GOVERNOR SAFFORD ARIZONA MINES APACHE RAIDS CAMP GRANT MASSACRE THE KILLING OF LIEUTENANT CUSH- ING . . 96 CHAPTER VII. GENERAL CROOK AND THE APACHES CROOK'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE APACHES THEIR SKILL IN WAR FOODS AND MODES OF COOKING MEDICINE MEN THEIR POWER AND INFLUENCE. 108 CHAPTER VIII. CROOK'S FIRST MOVEMENTS AGAINST THE APACHES THE SCOUTS MIRAGES THE FLORAL WEALTH OF ARIZONA RUNNING IN UPON THE HOSTILE APACHES AN ADVENTURE WITH BEARS CROOK'S TALK WITH THE APACHES THE GREAT MOGOLLON PLATEAU THE TONTO BASIN MONTE- ZUMA'S WELL CLIFF DWELLINGS THE PACK TRAINS. . . . 136 CHAPTER IX. THE PICTURESQUE TOWN OF PRESCOTT THE APACHES ACTIVE NEAR PRES- COTT "TOMMY" BYRNE AND THE HUALPAIS THIEVING INDIAN AGENTS THE MOJAVES, PI-UTES AND AVA-SUPAIS THE TRAVELS OF FATHERS ESCALANTE AND GARCES THE GODS OF THE HUALPAIS THE LORING MASSACRE HOW PHIL DWYER DIED AND WAS BURIED THE INDIAN MURDERERS AT CAMP DATE CREEK PLAN TO KILL CROOK MASON JUMPS THE RENEGADES AT THE " MUCHOS CANONES " DELT- CHE AND CHA-LIPUN GIVE TROUBLE THE KILLING OF BOB WHITNEY. 158 CHAPTER X. CROOK BEGINS HIS CAMPAIGN THE WINTER MARCH ACROSS THE MOGOLLON PLATEAU THE GREAT PINE ' BELT BOBBY-DOKLINNY, THE MEDICINE MAN COOLEY AND HIS APACHE WIFE THE APACHE CHIEF ESQUINOS- QUIZN THE APACHE GUIDE NANAAJE THE FEAST OF DEAD-MULE MEAT THE FIGHT IN THE CAVE IN THE SALT RIVER CANON THE DEATH-CHANT THE CHARGE THE DYING MEDICINE MAN THE SCENE IN THE CAVE 176 CHAPTER XI. THE CAMPAIGN RESUMED EFFICIENCY OF APACHE SCOUTS JACK LONG BREAKS DOWN A BAND OF APACHES SURRENDER IN THE MOUNTAINS THE EPIZOOTIC THE TAYLOR MASSACRE AND ITS AVENGING THE CONTENTS. j x PAGE ARIZONA ROLL OF HONOR, OFFICERS, MEN, SURGEONS, SCOUTS, GUIDES, AND PACKERS THE STRANGE RUIN IN THE VERDE VALLEY DEATH OF PRESILIANO MONJE THE APACHES SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY TO CROOK AT CAMP VERDE. 202 CHAPTER XII. THE PROBLEM OF CIVILIZING THE APACHES THE WORK PERFORMED BY MASON, SCHUYLER, RANDALL, RICE, AND BABCOCK TUCSON RING IN FLUENCE AT WASHINGTON THE WOUNDING OF LIEUTENANT CHARLES KING THE KILLING OF LIEUTENANT JACOB ALMY THE SEVEN APACHE HEADS LAID ON THE SAN CARLOS PARADE GROUND CROOK'S CASH MARKET FOR THE FRUITS OF APACHE INDUSTRY HIS METHOD OF DEALING WITH INDIANS 215 CHAPTER XIII. THE CLOSING DAYS OF CROOK'S FIRST TOUR IN ARIZONA VISIT TO THE MOQUI VILLAGES THE PAINTED DESERT THE PETRIFIED FORESTS THE GRAND CANON THE CATARACT CANON BUILDING THE TELEGRAPH LINE THE APACHES USING THE TELEGRAPH LINE MAPPING ARIZONA AN HONEST INDIAN AGENT THE CHIRICAHUA APACHE CHIEF, COCHEIS THE "HANGING" IN TUCSON A FRONTIER DANIEL CROOK'S DE PARTURE FROM ARIZONA DEATH VALLEY THE FAIRY LAND OF LOS ANGELES ARRIVAL AT OMAHA. . . . . . . 230 CHAPTER XIV. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE THE BLACK HILLS DIFFICULTY THE ALLISON COMMISSION CRAZY HORSE AND SITTING BULL THE FIRST WINTER CAMPAIGN CLOTHING WORN BY THE TROOPS THE START FOR THE BIG HORN FRANK GRUARD, LOUIS RICHAUD, BIG BAT, LOUIS CHANGRAU, AND OTHER GUIDES. . . . 241 CHAPTER XV. MOVING INTO THE BIG HORN COUNTRY IN WINTER THE HERD STAMPEDED A NIGHT ATTACK "JEFF'S" OOZING COURAGE THE GRAVE- YARD AT OLD FORT RENO IN A MONTANA BLIZZARD THE MERCURY FROZEN IN THE BULB KILLING BUFFALO INDIAN GRAVES HOW CROOK LOOKED WHILE ON THIS CAMPAIGN FINDING A DEAD INDIAN'S ARM nxa INDIAN PICTURES. . . . . * CHAPTER XVI. THE ATTACK UPON CRAZY HORSE'S VILLAGE THE BLEAK NIGHT MARCH ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS EGAN's CHARGE THROUGH THE VILLAGE x CONTENTS. PAGE STANTON AND MILLS AND SIBLEY TO THE RESCUE THE BURNING LODGES MEN FROZEN THE WEALTH OF THE VILLAGE RETREATING TO LODGE POLE CREEK CROOK REJOINS US CUTTING THE THROATS OF CAPTURED PONIES. 270 CHAPTER XVII. THE SUMMER CAMPAIGN OF 1876 THE SIOUX AND CHEYENNES GETTING UGLY RAIDING THE SETTLEMENTS ATTEMPT TO AMBUSCADE CROOK KILLING THE MAIL-RIDER THE STORY OF THE FETTERMAN MASSACRE LAKE DE SMET OUR FIRST THUNDERSTORM A SOLDIER'S BURIAL THE SIOUX ATTACK OUR CAMP TROUT-FISHING BEAR-HUNTING CALAMITY JANE THE CROW AND SHOSHONE ALLIES JOIN THE COM MAND THE WAR DANCE AND MEDICINE SONG. ..... 283 CHAPTER XVIII. THE COLUMN IN MOTION RUNNING INTO A GREAT HERD OF BUFFALOES THE SIGNAL CRY OF THE SCOUTS THE FIGHT ON THE ROSEBUD HOW THE KILLED WERE BURIED SCALP DANCE BUTCHERING A CHEY ENNE LIEUTENANT SCHUYLER ARRIVES SENDING BACK THE WOUNDED. 307 CHAPTER XIX. KILLING DULL CARE IN CAMP EXPLORING THE SNOW-CRESTED BIG HORN MOUNTAINS FINERTY KILLS HIS FIRST BUFFALO THE SWIMMING POOLS A BIG TROUT SIBLEY'S SCOUT A NARROW ESCAPE NEWS OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE THE SIOUX TRY TO BURN US OUT THE THREE MESSENGERS FROM TERRY WASHAKIE DRILLS HIS SHOSHONES KELLY THE COURIER STARTS TO FIND TERRY CROW INDIANS BEARING DE SPATCHES THE SIGN-LANGUAGE A PONY RACE INDIAN SERENADES HOW THE SHOSHONES FISHED A FIRE IN CAMP THE UTES JOIN US. 323 CHAPTER XX. THE JUNCTION WITH MERRITT AND THE MARCH TO MEET TERRY THE COUNTRY ON FIRE MERRITT AND HIS COMMAND MR. "GRAPHIC" STANTON AND HIS " IRREGULARS " " UTE JOHN" THE SITE OF THE HOSTILE CAMP A SIOUX CEMETERY MEETING TERRY'S COMMAND FIND ING TWO SKELETONS IN THE BAD LANDS LANCING RATTLESNAKES BATHING IN THE YELLOWSTONE MACKINAW BOATS AND " BULL" BOATS THE REES HAVE A PONY DANCE SOME TERRIBLE STORMS LIEUTENANT WILLIAM P. CLARKE 344 CHAPTER XXI. CROOK AND TERRY SEPARATE THE PICTURESQUE LITTLE MISSOURI THE " HORSE MEAT MARCH" FROM THE HEAD OF THE HEART RIVER TO CONTENTS. xi PAGE DEADWOOD ON THE SIOUX TRAIL MAKING COFFEE UNDER DIFFI CULTIESSLAUGHTERING WORN-OUT CAVALRY HORSES FOR FOOD THE FIGHT AT SLIM BUTTES LIEUTENANT VON LEUTTEWITZ LOSES A LEG THE DYING CHIEF, AMERICAN HORSE, SURRENDERS RELICS OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE CRAZY HORSE ATTACKS OUR LINES SUNSHINE AND RATIONS . 362 CHAPTER XXII. TO AND THROUGH THE BLACK HILLS HOW DEADWOOD LOOKED IN 1876 THE DEADWOOD "ACADEMY OF MUSIC " THE SECOND WINTER CAMPAIGN THE NAMES OF THE INDIAN SCOUTS WIPING OUT THE CHEYENNE VILLAGE LIEUTENANT MCKINNEY KILLED FOURTEEN CHEYENNE BABIES FROZEN TO DEATH IN THEIR MOTHERS' ARMS THE CUSTER MASSACRE AGAIN THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF RANDALL AND THE CROW SCOUTS. . . 381 CHAPTER XXIII. STRANGE MESS-MATES THE JOURNEY TO THE AGENCIES GENERAL SHERI- DAN'S VISIT SPOTTED TAIL THE STORY OF HIS DEAD DAUGHTER'S BONES WHITE THUNDER RED CLOUD DULL KNIFE BIG WOLF THE NECKLACE OF HUMAN FINGERS THE MEDICINE MAN AND THE ELECTRIC BATTERY WASHINGTON FRIDAY INDIAN BROTHERS SORREL HORSE THREE BEARS YOUNG MAN AFRAID OF HIS HORSES ROCKY BEAR RED CLOUD'S LETTER INDIAN DANCES THE BAD LANDS HOW THE CHEYENNES FIRST GOT HORSES 397 CHAPTER XXIV. THE SURRENDER OF CRAZY HORSE SELLING AMMUNITION TO HOSTILE IN DIANS PLUNDERING UNARMED, PEACEABLE INDIANS SUPPER WITH CRAZY HORSE CHARACTER OF THIS CHIEF HIS BRAVERY AND GEN EROSITY THE STORY OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE AS TOLD BY HORNY HORSE LIEUTENANT REILLY'S RING THE DEATH OF CRAZY HORSE LITTLE BIG MAN. . .,,.... t . 412 CHAPTER XXV. THE MANAGEMENT OF THE INDIAN AGENCIES AGENT MACGILLICUDDY'S WONDERFUL WORK CROOK'S REMAINING DAYS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE THE BANNOCK, UTE, NEZ PERCI1, AND CHEYENNE OUT BREAKS THE KILLING OF MAJOR THORNBURGH AND CAPTAIN WEIR MERRITT'S FAMOUS MARCH AGAINST TIME HOW THE DEAD CAME TO LIFE AND WALKED THE CASE OF THE PONCAS CROOK'S HUNTS AND EXPLORATIONS ; NEARLY FROZEN TO DEATH IN A BLIZZARD A NARROW x jj CONTENTS. PAGE ESCAPE FROM AN ANGRY SHE-BEAR CATCHING NEBRASKA HORSE- THIEVES " DOC " MIDDLETON'S GANG. 424 CHAPTER XXVI. CROOK RE-ASSIGNED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARIZONA ALL THE APACHES ON THE WAR-PATH LIEUTENANTS MORGAN AND CONVERSE WOUNDED CAPTAIN HENTIG KILLED CROOK GOES ALONE TO SEE THE HOSTILES CONFERENCES WITH THE APACHES WHAT THE ARIZONA GRAND JURY SAID OF AN INDIAN AGENT CONDITION OF AFFAIRS AT THE SAN CARLOS AGENCY WHISKEY SOLD TO THE CHIRICAHUA APACHES APACHE TRIALS BY JURY ARIZONA IN 1882 PHO3NIX, PRESCOTT, AND TUCSON INDIAN SCHOOLS 433 CHAPTER XXVII. THE SIERRA MADRE CAMPAIGN AND THE CHIRICAHUAS CHATO's RAID CROOK'S EXPEDITION OF FORTY-SIX WHITE MEN AND ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE INDIAN SCOUTS THE SURPRISE OF THE APACHE STRONGHOLD THE "TOMBSTONE TOUGHS " THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CHIRICAHUAS HOW INDIANS WILL WORK IF ENCOURAGED GIVING THE FRANCHISE TO INDIANS ; CROOK'S VIEWS THE CRAWFORD COURT OF INQUIRY KA-E-TEN-NA'S ARREST ORDERED BY MAJOR BARBER TROUBLE ARISES BETWEEN THE WAR AND INTERIOR DEPARTMENTS CROOK ASKS TO BE RELIEVED FROM THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS SOME OF THE CHIRICAHUAS RETURN TO THE WAR-PATH. . 452 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST GERONIMO THE CROPS RAISED BY THE APACHES THE PURSUIT OF THE HOSTILES THE HARD WORK OF THE TROOPS EFFICIENT AND FAITHFUL SERVICE OF THE CHIRICAHUA SCOUTS WAR DANCES AND SPIRIT DANCES CAPTAIN CRAWFORD KILLED A VISIT TO THE HOSTILE STRONGHOLD A " NERVY " PHOTOGRAPHER A WHITE BOY CAPTIVE AMONG THE APACHES ALCHISE's AND KA-E-TEN-NA's GOOD WORK GERONIMO SURRENDERS TO CROOK. , . . 465 CHAPTER XXIX. THE EFFECTS OF BAD WHISKEY UPON SAVAGE INDIANS THE WRETCH TRIBOL- LET SOME OF THE CHIRICAHUAS SLIP AWAY FROM MAUS DURING A RAINY NIGHT THE BURIAL OF CAPTAIN CRAWFORD CROOK'S TERMS DISAP PROVED IN WASHINGTON CROOK ASKS TO BE RELIEVED FROM COMMAND IN ARIZONA GERONIMO INDUCED TO COME IN BY THE CHIRICAHUA AMBASSADORS, Kl-E-TA AND MARTINEZ TREACHERY SHOWN IN THE TREATMENT OF THE WELL-BEHAVED MEMBERS OF THE CHIRICAHUA APACHE BAND. . . ' CONTENTS. xiii PAGE CHAPTER XXX. CROOK'S CLOSING YEARS HE AVERTS A WAR WITH THE UTES A MEMBER OF THE COMMISSION WHICH SECURED A CESSION OF ELEVEN MILLIONS OF ACRES FROM THE SIOUX HIS INTEREST IN GAME LAWS HIS DEATH WHAT THE APACHES DID WHAT RED CLOUD SAID HIS FUNERAL IN CHICAGO BURIAL IN OAKLAND, MARYLAND RE-INTERMENT IN ARLING TON CEMETERY, VIRGINIA. ..... 486 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. GENERAL GEORGE CROOK Frontispiece AN APACHE RANCHERIA Face page 48 SPOTTED TAIL 96 SHARP NOSE 192 GENERAL CROOK AND THE FRIENDLY APACHE, ALCHISE.. 240 CHATO 304 CONFERENCE BETWEEN GENERAL CROOK AND GERONIMO. 416 GRAVE OF CRAZY HORSE "THE EBB-TIDE OF OUR INDIAN WARS." ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK CHAPTER I. OLD CAMP GRANT ON THE RIO SAN PEDRO DAILY ROUTINE OF LIFE ARCHITECTURE OF THE GILA SOLDIERS AS LABOR ERS THE MESCAL AND ITS USES DRINK AND GAMBLING RATTLESNAKE BITES AND THE GOLONDRINA WEED- SODA LAKE AND THE DEATH VALLEY FELMER AND HIS RANCH. DANTE ALIGHIERI, it has always seemed to me, made the mistake of his life in dying when he did in the pict uresque capital of the Exarchate five hundred and fifty years ago. Had he held on to this mortal coil until after Uncle Sam had perfected the " Gadsden Purchase/' he would have found full scope for his genius in the description of a region in which not only purgatory and hell, but heaven likewise, had combined to produce a bewildering kaleidoscope of all that was wonder ful, weird, terrible, and awe-inspiring, with not a little that was beautiful and romantic. The vast region in the southwest corner of the United States, known on the maps as the Territories of Arizona and New Mex ico, may, with perfect frankness, be claimed as the wonder-land of the northern part of America, with the exception, perhaps, of the Republic of Mexico, of which it was once a fragment, and to which, ethnographically, it has never ceased to belong. In no other section can there be found such extensive areas of desert crossed in every direction by the most asperous mountains, whose profound cafions are the wonder of the world, whose parched flanks are matted with the thorny and leafless vegeta- 1 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. tion of the tropics, and whose lofty summits are black with the foliage of pines whose graceful branches bend in the welcome breezes from the temperate zone. Here one stumbles at almost every step upon the traces of former populations, of whom so little is known, or sees repeated from peak to peak the signal smokes of the fierce Apaches, whose hostility to the white man dates back to the time of Cortes. I will begin my narrative by a brief reference to the condition of affairs in Arizona prior to the arrival of General Crook, as by no other means can the arduous nature of the work he accom plished be understood and appreciated. It was a cold and cheer less day March 10, 1870 when our little troop, "F" of the Third Cavalry, than which a better never bore guidon, marched down the vertical-walled caflon of the Santa Catalina, crossed the insignificant sand-bed of the San Pedro, and came front into line on the parade-ground of Old Camp Grant, at the mouth of the Aravaypa. The sun was shining brightly, and where there was shelter to be found in the foliage of mesquite or cottonwood, there was the merry chatter of birds ; but in the open spaces the fierce breath of the norther, laden with dust and discomfort, made the new-comers imagine that an old-fashioned home win ter had pursued them into foreign latitudes. A few military formalities hastily concluded, a few words of kindly greeting between ourselves and the members of the First Cavalry whom we met there, and ranks were broken, horses led to the stables, and men filed off to quarters. We had become part and parcel of the garrison of Old Camp Grant, the memory of which is still fragrant as that of the most forlorn parody upon a military gar rison in that most woe-begone of military departments, Arizona. Of our march over from the Rio Grande it is not worth while to speak ; as the reader advances in this book he will find refer ences to other military movements which may compensate for the omission, even when it is admitted that our line of travel from Fort Craig lay through a region but little known to people in the East, and but seldom described. For those who may be sufficiently interested to follow our course, I will say that we started from Craig, marched to the tumble-down village of "Paraje de San Cristobal," at the head of the "Jornada del Muerto" (The Day's Journey of the Dead Man), which is the Sahara of New Mexico, then across to the long-since abandoned JOURNEYING FROM CAMP TO CAMP. 3 camp at what was called Fort MacRae, where we forded the river to the west, and then kept along the eastern rim of the timber-clad Mimbres Mountains, through Cow Springs to Fort Cummings, and thence due west to Camp Bowie, situated in the " Apache Pass" of the Chiricahua Mountains in Southeastern Arizona, a total distance of some one hundred and seventy miles as we marched. There were stretches of country picturesque to look upon and capable of cultivation, especially with irrigation ; and other ex panses not a bit more fertile than so many brick-yards, where all was desolation, the home of the cactus and the coyote. Arizona was in those days separated from es God's country " by a space of more than fifteen hundred miles, without a railroad, and the officer or soldier who once got out there rarely returned for years. Our battalion slowly crawled from camp to camp, with no. inci dent to break the dull monotony beyond the ever-recurring sig nal smokes of the Apaches, to show that our progress was duly watched from the peaks on each flank ; or the occasional breaking down of some of the wagons and the accompanying despair of the quartermaster, with whose afflictions I sympathized sincerely, as that quartermaster was myself. I used to think that there never had been such a wagon-train, and that there never could again be assembled by the Govern ment mules of whose achievements more could be written whose necks seemed to be ever slipping through their collars, and whose heels never remained on terrafirma while there was anything in sight at which to kick. Increasing years and added experience have made me more conservative, and I am now free to admit that there have been other mules as thoroughly saturated with depravity as "Blinky Jim," the lop-eared dun " wheeler" in the water-wagon team ; other artists whose attainments in profanity would put the blush upon the expletives which waked the echoes of the mirage-haunted San Simon, and other drivers who could get as quickly, unmistakably, emphatically, and undeniably drunk as Mullan, who was down on the official papers as the driver of the leading ambulance, but, instead of driving, was generally driven. There would be very little use in attempting to describe Old Fort Grant, Arizona, partly because there was really no fort to describe, and partly because few of my readers would be suffi- 4 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. ciently interested in the matter to follow me to the end. It was, as I have already said, recognized from the tide-waters of the Hudson to those of the Columbia as the most thoroughly God forsaken post of all those supposed to be included in the annual Congressional appropriations. Beauty of situation or of construc tion it had none ; its site was the supposed junction of the sand- bed of the Aravaypa with the sand-bed of the San Pedro, which complacently figured on the topographical charts of the time as creek and river respectively, but generally were dry as a lime- burner's hat excepting during the "rainy season." Let the reader figure to himself a rectangle whose four sides were the row of officers' " quarters/' the adjutant's office, post bakery, and guard house, the commissary and quartermaster's storehouses, and the men's quarters and sutler's store, and the "plan," if there was any "plan," can be afc once understood. Back of the quartermaster's and commissary storehouses, some little distance, were the blacksmith's forge, the butcher's ee corral," and the cav alry stables, while in the rear of the men's quarters, on the banks of the San Pedro, and not far from the traces of the ruins of a prehistoric village or pueblo of stone, was the loose, sandy spot upon which the bucking " bronco " horses were broken to the sad dle. Such squealing and struggling and biting and kicking, and rolling in the dust and getting up again, only to introduce some entirely original combination of a hop, skip, and jump, and a double back somersault, never could be seen outside of a herd of California "broncos." The animal was first thrown, blind folded, and then the bridle and saddle were put on, the latter girthed so tightly that the horse's eyes would start from their sockets. Then, armed with a pair of spurs of the diameter of a soup-plate and a mesquite club big enough to fell an ox, the Mexican " vaquero " would get into the saddle, the blinds would be cast off, and the circus begin. There would be one moment of sweet doubt as to what the " bronco " was going to do, and now and then there would be aroused expectancy that a really mild- mannered steed had been sent to the post by some mistake of the quartermaster's department. But this doubt never lasted very long ; the genuine " bronco " can always be known from the spurious one by the fact that when he makes up his mind to " buck " he sets out upon his work without delay, and with a vim that means business. If there were many horses arriving in BREAKING BRONCOS. 5 a " bunch/' there would be lots of fun and no little danger and excitement. The men would mount, and amid the encouraging comments of the on-lookers begin the task of subjugation. The bronco, as I have said, or should have said, nearly always looked around and up at his rider with an expression of countenance that was really benignant, and then he would roach his back, get his four feet bunched together, and await developments. These always came in a way productive of the best results ; if the rider foolishly listened to the suggestions of his critics, he would almost always mistake this temporary paroxysm of docility for fear or lack of spirit. And then would come the counsel, inspired by the Evil One himself : " Arrah, thin, shtick yer sphurs int' him, Moriarty.*' This was just the kind of advice that best suited the " bronco's " feelings, because no sooner would the rowels strike his flanks than the air would seem to be filled with a mass of mane and tail rap idly revolving, and of hoofs flying out in defiance of all the laws of gravity, while a descendant of the kings of Ireland, describing a parabolic orbit through space, would shoot like a meteor into the sand, and plough it up with his chin and the usual elocu tionary effects to be looked for under such circumstances. Yes, those were happy, happy days for the " broncos " and the by-standers. There were three kinds of quarters at Old Camp Grant, and he who was reckless enough to make a choice of one passed the rest of his existence while at the post in growling at the better luck of the comrades who had selected either one of the others. There was the adobe house, built originally for the kitchens of the post at the date of its first establishment, some time in 1857 ; there were the "jacal" sheds, built of upright logs, chinked with mud and roofed with smaller branches and more mud ; and the tents, long since " condemned " and forgotten by the quar termaster to whom they had originally been invoiced. Each and all of these examples of the Renaissance style of architecture, as it found expression in the valley of the Gila, was provided with a " ramada " in front, which, at a small expenditure of labor in erecting a few additional upright saplings and cross-pieces, and a covering of cotton wood foliage, secured a modicum of shelter from the fierce shafts of a sun which shone not to warm and enlighten, but to enervate and kill. 6 ON" THE BORDER WITH CROOK. The occupants of the ragged tentage found solace in the pure air which merrily tossed the flaps and flies, even if it brought with it rather more than a fair share of heat and alkali dust from the deserts of Sonora. Furthermore, there were few insects to bother, a pleasing contrast to the fate of those living in the houses, which were veritable museums of entomology, with the choicest specimens of centipedes, scorpions, " vinagrones," and, occasionally, tarantulas, which the Southwest could produce. On the other hand, the denizens of the adobe and the " jacal outfits " became inured to insect pests and felicitated themselves as best they could upon being free from the merciless glare of the sun and wind, which latter, with its hot breath, seemed to take delight in peeling the skin from the necks and faces of all upon whom it could exert its nefarious powers. My assignment was to one of the rooms in the adobe house, an apartment some four teen by nine feet in area, by seven and a half or eight in height. There was not enough furniture to occasion any anxiety in case of fire : nothing but a single cot, one rocking-chair visitors, when they came, generally sat on the side of the cot a trunk, a shelf of books, a small pine wash-stand, over which hung a mir ror of greenish hue, sold to me by the post trader with the assur ance that it was French plate. I found out afterward that the trader could not always be relied upon, but Fll speak of him at another time. There were two window-curtains, both of chintz ; one concealed the dust and fly specks on the only window, and the other covered the row of pegs upon which hung sabre, forage cap, and uniform. In that part of Arizona fires were needed only at intervals, and, as a consequence, the fireplaces were of insignificant dimensions, although they were placed, in the American fashion, on the side of the rooms, and not, as among the Mexicans, in the corners. There was one important article of furniture connected with the fireplace of which I must make mention the long iron poker with which, on occasion, I was wont to stir up the embers, and also to stir up the Mexican boy Espendion, to whom, in the wilder freaks of my imagination, I was in the habit of alluding as my "valet." The quartermaster had recently received permission to expend " a reasonable amount " of paint upon the officers' quarters, pro vided the same could be done "by the labor of the troops." CAMP HOUSEHOLD ART. 7 This ' ' labor of the troops " was a great thing. It made the poor wretch who enlisted under the vague notion that his ad miring country needed his services to quell hostile Indians, sud denly find himself a brevet architect, carrying a hod and doing odd jobs of plastering and kalsomining. It was an idea which never fully commended itself to my mind, and I have always thought that the Government might have been better served had such work, and all other not strictly military and necessary for the proper police and cleanliness of the posts, been assigned to civilians just as soon as representatives of the different trades could be attracted to the frontier. It would have cost a little more in the beginning, but it would have had the effect of help ing to settle up our waste land on the frontier, and that, I be lieve, was the principal reason why we had a standing army at all. The soldier felt discontented because no mention had been made in the recruiting officer's posters, or in the contract of enlistment, that he was to do such work, and he not unusually solved the problem by " skipping out " the first pay-day that found him with enough money ahead to risk the venture. It goes without saying that the work was never any too well done, and in the present case there seemed to be more paint scattered round about my room than would have given it another coat. But the floor was of rammed earth and not to be spoiled, and the general effect was certainly in the line of improvement. Colonel Dubois, our commanding officer, at least thought so, and warmly congratulated me upon the snug look of everything, and added a very acceptable present of a picture one of Prang's framed chromos, a view of the Hudson near the mouth of Esopus Creek which gave a luxurious finish to the whole business. Later on, after I had added an Apache bow and quiver, with its comple ment of arrows, one or two of the bright, cheery Navajo rugs, a row of bottles filled with select specimens of tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, rattlesnakes, and others of the fauna of the country, and hung upon the walls a suit of armor which had belonged to some Spanish foot-soldier of the sixteenth century, there was a sybaritic suggestiveness which made all that has been related of the splendors of Solomon and Sardanapalus seem commonplace. Of that suit of armor I should like to say a word : it was found by Surgeon Steyer, of the army, enclosing the bones of a man, in the arid country between the waters of the Rio Grande and the 8 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Pecos, in the extreme southwestern corner of the State of Texas, more than twenty years ago. Various conjectures were advanced and all sorts of theories advocated as to its exact age, some people thinking that it belonged originally to Coronado's expedition, which entered New Mexico in 1541. My personal belief is that it belonged to the expedition of Don Antonio Espejo, or that of Don Juan de Onate, both of whom came into New Mexico about the same date 1581-1592 and travelled down the Concho to its confluence with the Rio Grande, which would have been just on the line where the skeleton in armor was discovered. There is no authentic report to show that Coronado swung so far to the south ; his line of operations took in the country farther to the north and east, and there are the best of reasons for believing that he was the first white man to enter the fertile valley of the Platte, not far from Plum Creek, Nebraska. But, be that as it may, the suit of armor breast and back plates, gorget and helmet nicely painted and varnished, and with every tiny brass button duly cleaned and polished with acid and ashes, added not a little to the looks of a den which without them would have been much more dismal. For such of my readers as may not be up in these matters, I may say that iron armor was abandoned very soon after the Con quest, as the Spaniards found the heat of these dry regions too great to admit of their wearing anything so heavy ; and they also found that the light cotton-batting " escaupiles " of the Aztecs served every purpose as a protection against the arrows of the naked savages by whom they were now surrounded. There was not much to do in the post itself, although there was a sufficiency of good, healthy exercise to be counted upon at all times outside of it. I may be pardoned for dwelling upon trivial matters such as were those entering into the sum total of our lives in the post, but, under the hope that it and all in the remotest degree like it have disappeared from the face of the earth never to return, I will say a few words. In the first place, Camp Grant was a hot-bed of the worst kind of fever and ague, the disease which made many portions of Southern Arizona almost uninhabitable during the summer and fall months of the year. There was nothing whatever to do ex cept scout after hostile Apaches, who were very bold and kept ARIZONA FLORA AND FAUNA. 9 the garrison fully occupied. What with sickness, heat, bad water, flies, sand-storms, and utter isolation, life would have been dreary and dismal were it not for the novelty which helped out the determination to make the best of everything. First of all, there was the vegetation, different from anything to be seen east of the Missouri : the statuesque " pitahayas," with luscious fruit ; the massive biznagas, whose juice is made into very pala table candy by the Mexicans ; the bear's grass, or palm ilia ; the Spanish bayonet, the palo verde, the various varieties of cactus, principal among them being the nopal, or plate, and the cholla, or nodular, which possesses the decidedly objectionable quality of separating upon the slightest provocation, and sticking to whatever may be nearest ; the mesquite, with palatable gum and nourishing beans ; the mescal, beautiful to look upon and grate ful to the Apaches, of whom it is the main food-supply ; the scrub oak, the juniper, cotton wood, ash, sycamore, and, lastly, the pine growing on the higher points of the environing moun tains, were all noted, examined, and studied, so far as oppor tunity would admit. And so with the animal life : the deer, of the strange variety called ''the mule"; the coyotes, badgers, pole-cats, rabbits, gophers but not the prairie-dog, which, for some reason never understood by me, does not cross into Arizona ; or, to be more accurate, does just cross over the New Mexican boundary at Fort Bowie in the southeast, and at Tom Keam's ranch in the Moqui country in the extreme northeast. Strangest of all was the uncouth, horrible "escorpion," or " Gila monster," which here found its favorite habitat and at tained its greatest dimensions. We used to have them not less than three feet long, black, venomous, and deadly, if half the stories told were true. The Mexicans time and time again asserted that the escorpion would kill chickens, and that it would eject a poison ous venom upon them, but, in my own experience, I have to say that the old hen which we tied in front of one for a whole day was not molested, and that no harm of any sort came to her beyond being scared out of a year's growth. Scientists were wont to rid icule the idea of the Gila monster being venomous, upon what ground I do not now remember, beyond the fact that it was a lizard, and all lizards were harmless. But I believe it is now well established that the monster is not to be handled with impunity. IQ ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. although, like many other animals, it may lie torpid and inoffen sive for weeks, and even months, at a time. It is a noteworthy fact that the Gila monster is the only reptile on earth to-day that ex actly fills the description of the basilisk or cockatrice of mediaeval fable, which, being familiar to the first-comers among the Castil- ians, could hardly have added much to its popularity among them. It may not be amiss to say of the vegetation that the mescal was to the aborigines of that region much what the palm is to the nomads of Syria. Baked in ovens of hot stone covered with earth, it supplied a sweet, delicious, and nutritive food ; its juice could be fermented into an alcoholic drink very acceptable to the palate, even if it threw into the shade the best record ever made by "Jersey lightning" as a stimulant. Tear out one of the thorns and the adhering filament, and you had a very fair article of needle and thread ; if a lance staff was needed, the sap ling mescal stood ready at hand to be so utilized ; the stalk, cut into sections of proper length, and provided with strings of sinew, became the Apache fiddle I do not care to be interrupted by questions as to the quality of the music emitted by these fiddles, as I am now trying to give my readers some notion of the eco nomic value of the several plants of the Territory, and am not ready to enter into a disquisition upon melody and such matters, in which, perhaps, the poor little Apache fiddle would cut but a slim figure and in various other ways this strange, thorny- leafed plant seemed anxious to show its friendship for man. And I for one am not at all surprised that the Aztecs reverenced it as one of their gods, under the name of Quetzalcoatl.* The " mesquite " is a member of the acacia family, and from its bark annually, each October, exudes a gum equal to the best Arabic that ever descended the Nile from Khartoum. There are three varieties of the plant, two of them edible and one not. One of the edible kinds the " tornillo," or screw grows luxu riantly in the hot, sandy valley of the Colorado, and forms the main vegetable food of the Mojave Indians ; the other, with pods shaped much like those of the string-bean of our own markets, is equally good, and has a sweet and pleasantly acidulated taste. The squaws take these beans, put them in mortars, and pound them into meal, of which bread is made, in shape and size and * Quetzalcoatl is identified with the maguey in Kingsborough, vol. vi., 107. MESQUITE. 11 weight not unlike the elongated projectiles of the three-inch rifled cannon. Alarcon, who ascended the Colorado Eiver in 1541, describes such bread as in use among the tribes along its banks ; and Cabeza de Vaca and his wretched companions, sole survivors of the doomed expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez, which went to pieces near the mouth of the Suwanee River, in Florida, found this bread in use among the natives along the western part of their line of march, after they had succeeded in escaping from the Indians who had made them slaves, and had, in the guise of medicine-men, tramped across the continent until they struck the Spanish settlements near Culiacan, on the Pacific coast, in 1536. But Vaca calls it " mizquiquiz." Oastaneda relates that in his day (1541) the people of Sonora (which then included Arizona) made a bread of the mesquite, shaping it like a cheese ; it had the property of keeping for a whole year. There was so little hunting in the immediate vicinity of the post, and so much danger attending the visits of small parties to the higher hills a few miles off, in which deer, and even bear, were to be encountered, that nothing in that line was attempted except when on scout ; all our recreation had to be sought within the limits of the garrison, and evolved from our own personal re sources. The deficiency of hunting did not imply that there was any lack of shooting about the post ; all that any one could desire could be had for the asking, and that, too, without moving from under the " ramadas " back of the quarters. Many and many a good line shot we used to make at the coyotes and skunks which with the going down of the sun made their appearance in the garbage piles in the ravines to the north of us. There was considerable to be done in the ordinary troop duties, which began at reveille with the "stables," lasting half an hour, after which the horses and mules not needed for the current tasks of the day were sent out to seek such nibbles of pasturage as they might find under the shade of the mesquite. A strong guard, mounted and fully armed, accompanied the herd, and a number of horses, saddled but loosely cinched, remained behind under the grooming-sheds, ready to be pushed out after any raiding party of Apaches which might take a notion to sneak up and stampede the herd at pasture. 12 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Guard mounting took place either before or after breakfast, according to season, and then followed the routine of the day : inspecting the men's mess at breakfast, dinner, and supper; a small amount of drill, afternoon stables, dress or undress parade at retreat or sundown, and such other occupation as might sug gest itself in the usual visit to the herd to see that the pasturage selected was good, and that the guards were vigilant ; some ab sorption in the recording of the proceedings of garrison courts- martial and boards of survey, and then general ennui, unless the individual possessed enough force to make work for himself. This, however, was more often the case than many of my read ers would imagine, and I can certify to no inconsiderable amount of reading and study of Spanish language and literature, of min eralogy, of botany, of history, of constitutional or of interna tional law, and of the belles-lettres, by officers of the army with whom I became acquainted at Old Camp Grant ; Fort Craig, New Mexico, and other dismal holes more than I have ever known among gentlemen of leisure anywhere else. It was no easy matter to study with ink drying into gum almost as soon as dipped out by the pen, and paper cracking at the edges when folded or bent. The newspapers of the day were eagerly perused when they came ; but those from San Francisco were always from ten to fif teen days old, those from New York about five to six weeks, and other cities any intermediate age you please. The mail at first came every second Tuesday, hut this was increased soon to a weekly service, and on occasion, when chance visitors reported some happening of importance, the commanding officer would send a courier party to Tucson with instructions to the post master there to deliver. The temptations to drink and to gamble were indeed great, and those who yielded and fell by the way-side numbered many of the most promising youngsters in the army. Many a brilliant and noble fellow has succumbed to the ennui and gone down, wrecking a life full of promise for himself and the service. It was hard for a man to study night and day with the thermom eter rarely under the nineties even in winter at noon, and often climbing up to and over the 120 notch on the Fahrenheit scale before the meridian of days between April 1st and October 15th ; it was hard to organize riding or hunting parties when all the horses had just returned worn out by some rough scouting in DRINKING AND GAMBLING. 13 the Final or Sierra Ancha. There in the trader's store was a pleasant, cool room, with a minimum of flies, the latest papers, perfect quiet, genial companionship, cool water in " ollas " swing ing from the rafters, and covered by boards upon which, in a thin layer of soil, grew a picturesque mantle of green barley, and, on a table conveniently near, cans of lemon-sugar, tumblers and spoons, and one or two packs of cards. My readers must not expect me to mention ice or fruits. I am not describing Del- rnonico's ; I am writing of Old Camp Grant, and I am painting the old hole in the most rosy colors I can employ. Ice was unheard of, and no matter how high the mercury climbed or how stifling might be the sirocco from Sonora, the best we could do was to cool water by evaporation in " ollas " of earthenware, manufactured by the Papago Indians living at the ruined mis sion of San Xavier, above Tucson. To revert to the matter of drinking and gambling. There is scarcely any of either at the present day in the regular army. Many things have combined to bring about such a desirable change, the principal, in my opinion, being the railroads which have penetrated and transformed the great American continent, placing comforts and luxuries within reach of officers and men, and absorbing more of their pay as well as bringing them within touch of civilization and its attendant restraints. Of the two vices, drunkenness was by all odds the preferable one. For a drunkard, one can have some pity, because he is his own worst enemy, and, at the worst, there is hope for his regener ation, while there is absolutely none for the gambler, who lives upon the misfortunes and lack of shrewdness of his comrades. There are many who believe, or affect to believe, in gaming for the excitement of the thing and not for the money involved. There may be such a thing, but I do not credit its existence. However, the greatest danger in gambling lay in the waste of time rather than in the loss of money, which loss rarely amounted to very great sums, although officers could not well afford to lose anything. I well remember one great game, played by a party of my friends but at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and not in Arizona which illustrates this better than I can describe. It was an all- night game ten cents to come in and a quarter limit and there was no small amount of engineering skill shown before the first !4 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. call for reveille separated the party. " Fellows," said one of the quartette, in speaking of it some days afterward, " I tell you it was a struggle of the giants, and when the smoke of battle cleared away, I found I'd lost two dollars and seventy-five cents." As it presents itself to my recollection now, our life wasn't so very monotonous ; there was always something going on to interest and instruct, even if it didn't amuse or enliven. " Corporal Dile's har-r-r-se 'B bit by a ratthler 'n th' aff hind leg"; and, of course, everybody turns out and gets down to the stables as fast as possible, each with his own prescription, which are one and all discarded for the great Mexican panacea of a poul tice of the "golondrina" weed. Several times I have seen this used, successfully and unsuccessfully, and I do not believe in its vaunted efficacy by any means. " Oscar Hutton 's bin kicked "n th' jaw by a mewel." Hutton was one of the post guides, a very good and brave man. His jaw was hopelessly crushed by a blow from the lightning hoofs of a miserable " bronco " mule, and poor Hutton never recovered from the shock. He died not long after, and, in my opinion, quite as much from chagrin at being outwitted as from the injury in flicted. Hutton had had a wonderful experience in the meanest parts of our great country and be it known that Uncle Sam can hold his own with any prince or potentate on God's footstool in the matter of mean desert land. All over the great interior basin west of the Rockies Hutton had wandered in the employ of the United States with some of the Government surveying parties. Now he was at the mouth of the Virgin, where there is a salt mine with slabs two and three feet thick, as clear as crystal ; next he was a wanderer in the dreaded " Death Valley," below the sea- level, where there is no sign of animal life save the quickly dart ing lizard, or the vagrant duck whose flesh is bitter from the water of " soda" lakes, which offer to the wanderer all the com forts of a Chinese laundry, but not one of those of a home. At that time I only knew of these dismal places from the relation of Hutton, to which I listened open-mouthed, but since then I have had some personal acquaintance, and can aver that in naught did he overlap the truth. The ground is covered for miles with pure baking-soda I decline to specify what brand, as I am not FELMER'S PURCHASE. !5 writing this as an advertisement,, and my readers can consult individual preference if they feel so disposed which rises in a cloud of dry, irritating dust above the horse's houghs, and if agitated by the hot winds, excoriates the eyes, throat, nostrils, and ears of the unfortunate who may find himself there. Now and then one discerns in the dim distance such a deceiving body of water as the ' Soda Lake," which tastes like soapsuds, and nourishes no living thing save the worthless ducks spoken of, whose flesh is uneatable except to save one from starvation. Hutton had seen so much hardship that it was natural to expect him to be meek and modest in his ideas and demeanor, but he was, on the contrary, decidedly vain and conceited, and upon such a small matter that it ought riot really to count against him. He had six toes on each foot, a fact to which he adverted with pride. " Bee gosh," he would say, " there hain't ennuther man 'n th' hull dog-goned outfit 's got ez meiiny toes 's me." Then there was the excitement at Felmer's ranch, three miles above the post. Felmer was the post blacksmith, and lived in a little ranch in the fertile " bottom " of the San Pedro, where he raised a " patch " of barley and garden- truck for sale to the gar rison. He was a Russian or a Polynesian or a Turk or a Theoso- phist or something he had lived in so many portions of the- world's surface that I never could keep track of him. I distinctly remember that he was born in Germany, had lived in Russia or in the German provinces close to Poland, and had thence trav elled everywhere. He had married an Apache squaw, and from her learned the language of her people. She was now dead, but Joe was quite proud of his ability to cope with all the Apaches in Arizona, and in being a match for them in every wile. One hot day all the days were comfortably warm, but this was a " scorcher " there was a sale of condemned Government stock, and Joe bought a mule, which the auctioneer facetiously suggested should be called " Lazarus," he had so many sores all over his body. But Joe bought him, perfectly indifferent to the scoffs and sneers of the by-standers. " Don't you think the Apaches may get him ? " I ventured to inquire. "That's jest what I'm keeping him fur ; bait unnerstan' ? 'N Apache '11 come down 'n my alfalfy field 'n git thet mewel, 'n fust thing you know thar '11 be a joke on somebody. " 16 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Felmer was a first-class shot, and we naturally supposed that the joke would be on the deluded savage who might sneak down to ride away with such a crow-bait, and would become the mark for an unerring rifle. But it was not so to be. The wretched quadruped had his shoes pulled off, and was then turned loose in alfalfa and young barley, to his evident enjoyment and benefit. Some time had passed, and we had almost forgotten to twit Felmer about his bargain. It's a very thin joke that cannot be made to last five or six weeks in such a secluded spot as Old Camp Grant, and, for that reason, at least a month must have elapsed when, one bright Sunday afternoon, Felmer was rudely aroused from his siesta by the noise of guns and the voices of his Mexican herders crying : " Apaches ! Apaches ! " And there they were, sure enough, and on top of that sick, broken- down cast-off of the quartermaster's department three of them, each as big as the side of a house, and poor Joe so dazed that for several minutes he couldn't fire a shot. The two bucks in front were kicking their heels into the mule's ribs, and the man in rear had passed a hair lariat under the mule's tail, and was sawing away for dear life. And the mule ? Well, the mule wasn't idle by any means, but putting in his best licks in getting over the ground, jumping "arroyos" and rocks, charging into and over nopals and chollas and mesquite, and fast leaving behind him the valley of the San Pedro, and getting into the foot-hills of the Piualeno Range. CHAPTER II. STRANGE VISITORS SOME APACHE CUSTOMS MEXICAN CAPTIVES SPEEDY AND THE GHOST THE ATTACK UPON KENNEDY AND ISRAEL'S TRAIN FINDING THE BODIES THE DEAD APACHE A FRONTIER BURIAL HOW LIEUTENANT YEATON RECEIVED HIS DEATH WOUND ON THE TRAIL WITH LIEU TENANT GUSHING REVENGE IS SWEET. WE had all sorts of visitors from the adjacent country. The first I remember was a squaw whose nose had been cut off by a brutal and jealous husband. The woman was not at all bad looking, and there was not a man at the post who did not feel sorry for the unfortunate who, for some dereliction, real or imagined, had been so savagely disfigured. This shocking mode of punishment, in which, by the way, the Apache resembled some of the nations of antiquity, prevailed in full vigor until after General Crook had subjected this fierce tribe to law and discipline, and the first, or, at least, among the very first, regulations he laid down for their guidance was that the women of the tribe must be treated just as kindly as the men, and each and every infraction of the rule was threatened with the severest punishment the whole military force could inflict. Since then the practice has wholly died out among both the Apaches and the Hualpais. Then there came an old withered crone, leading a woman some what younger, but still shrivelled with the life of care and drudg ery which falls to the lot of the Apache matron, and a third member of this interesting party, a boy ten or twelve years old, who was suffering from the bite of a rattlesnake, which had caused his right leg to shrink and decay. The medicine-men of their band had sung vigorously and applied such medicine as they thought best suited to the case, but it proved to be beyond their skill, and they had advised this, journey to Camp Grant, to see what the white man's medicine could do for the sufferer. 2 18 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Still another interesting picture framed in my memory is that of the bent old dotard who wished to surrender on account of frankly confessed impotency to remain longer on the war-path. Battles were for young men only ; as people grew older they got more sense, and all should live as brothers. This world was large enough for everybody, and there should be enough to eat for the Indians and the white men, too. There were men whose hearts were hard and who would not listen to reason ; they wished to fight, but as for himself, his legs could not climb the mountains any longer, and the thorns were bad when they scratched his skin. His heart was good, and so long as this stone which he placed on the ground should last he wanted to let the Great Father know that he meant to be his friend. Had his brother, the post commander, any tobacco ? Many an hour did I sit by the side of our friend and brother, watching him chip out arrow-heads from fragments of beer bot tles, or admiring the dexterity with which he rubbed two sticks together to produce flame. Matches were his greatest treasure, and he was never tired begging for them, and as soon as obtained, he would wrap them up carefully in a piece of buckskin to screen from the weather. But we never gave him reason to suspect that our generosity was running away with our judgment. We were careful not to give him any after we found out that he could make fire so speedily and in a manner so strange, and which we were never tired of seeing. These members of the tribe were all kept as prisoners, more to prevent communication with the enemy than from any suspected intention of attempting an escape. They were perfectly contented, were well fed, had no more to do than was absolutely good for them in the way of exercise, and except that they had to sleep under the eyes of the sentinels at night, were as free as any one else in the garrison. Once or twice Indian couriers came over from Camp Apache or Thomas, as it was then called in the Sierra Blanca. Those whom I first saw were almost naked, their only clothing being a muslin loin-cloth, a pair of pointed- toed moccasins, and a hat of hawk feathers. They had no arms but lances and bows and arrows. One of them bore a small round shield of raw-hide decked with eagle plumage , another had a pretty fiddle made of a joint of the bamboo-like stalk of the century plant, and a third had a pack of monte cards, cut out INDIAN COURIERS. 19 of dried pony skin and painted to represent rudely the figures in the four suits. Their lank, long black hair, held back from the eyes by bands of red flannel ; their superb chests, expanded by constant exer cise in the lofty mountains, and their strongly muscled legs con firmed all that I had already learned of their powers of endur ance from the half-breed Mexicans and the tame Apaches at the post people like Manuel Duran, Nicolas, and Francisco, who were what were then known as tame Apaches, and who had never lived with the others in the hills, but belonged to a section which had made peace with the whites many years previously and had never broken it ; or escaped captives like Jose Maria, Jose de Leon, Victor Ruiz, or Antonio Besias, who had been torn away from their homes in Sonora at an early age, and had lived so long with the savages that they had become thoroughly conver sant with all their ideas and customs as well as their language. Nearly all that class of interpreters and guides are now dead. Each had a wonderful history, well worthy of recital, but I can not allow myself to be tempted into a more extended reference to any of them at this moment. The fact that the post trader had just received a stock of new goods meant two things it meant that he had made a mistake in his order and received a consignment different from the old goods which he had hitherto taken so much pride in keeping upon his shelves, and it meant that the paymaster was about to pay us a visit, and leave a share of Uncle Sam's money in the country. There were two assistants in the store,, Paul and Speedy. Paul was getting along in years, but Speedy was young and bright. Paul had at one period in his life possessed some intelli gence and a fair education, but whiskey, cards, and tobacco had long ago blunted what faculties he could claim, and left him a poor hulk, working for his board and drinks at such odd jobs as there were to do about the premises. He had been taught the trade of cabinet-making in Strassburg, and when in good humor, and not too drunk, would join and polish, carve and inlay boxes, made of the wood of the mesquite, madrofio, manzanita, ash, and walnut, which would delight the eyes of the most critical. Speedy was the most active man about the post. He was one 20 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. of our best runners, and by all odds the best swimmer in the cool, deep pools which the San Pedro formed where it came up out of the sands a short distance below the officers' quarters, and where we often bathed in the early evening hours, with some one of the party on guard, because the lurking Apaches were always a stand ing menace in that part of Arizona. I do not know what has become of Speedy. He was an excep tionally good man in many ways, and if not well educated, made up in native intelligence what others more fortunate get from books. From a Yankee father he inherited the Maine shrewd ness in money matters and a keenness in seeing the best points in a bargain. A Spanish mother endowed him with a fund of gentle politeness and good manners. When he came to bid me good-by and tell me that he had opened a " Monte Pio," or pawnbroker's shop, in Tucson, I ven tured to give him a little good advice. " You must be careful of your money, Speedy. Pawnbroking is a risky business. You'll be likely to have a great deal of unsal able stuff left on your hands, and it don't look to me as if five per cent, was enough interest to charge. The laws of New York, I believe, allow one to charge twenty per cent, per annum." " Cap., what's per annum ? " "Why, every year, of course." "Oh, but you see mine is five per cent, a week." Speedy was the only man I ever knew who had really seen a ghost. As he described it to us, it had much the appearance of a "human," and was mounted on a pretty good specimen of a Sonora plug, and was arrayed in a suit of white canvas, with white helmet, green veil, blue goggles, and red side whiskers. It didn't say a word to my friend, but gave him a decidedly cold stare, which was all that Speedy cared to wait for before he broke for the brush. A hundred yards or so in rear there was a train of pack mules, laden with cot frames, bath-tubs, hat boxes, and other trumpery, which may or may not have had something to do with the ghost in advance. Speedy and his mule were too agitated to stop to ask questions, and continued on into Hermosillo. Information^ received about this time from Sonora reported that an English "lud" was ''roughing it" in and about the Yaqui country, and it is just possible that he could have given AN APACHE AMBUSCADE. 21 ^ i much information about the apparition had it been demanded ; but Speedy persisted in his belief that he had had a " call " from the other world, and was sorely depressed for several weeks. Speedy rendered valuable help in our self-imposed task of digging in the "ruins" alongside of our quarters vestiges of an occupancy by a pre-historic race, allied to the Pueblos of the Rio Grande or to the Pimas and Papagoes. Broken pottery, painted and unpainted, a flint knife or two, some arrow-heads, three or four stone hatchets, and more of the same sort, were our sole reward for much hard work. The great question which wrought us up to fever heat was, Who were these inhabitants ? Felmer promptly decided that they were Phoeni cians upon what grounds I do not know, and it is very doubt ful if Felmer knew either but Oscar Hutton " 'lowed they moufc V bin some o' them Egyptian niggers as built the pyramids in th' Bible." The paymaster had come and gone ; the soldiers had spent their last dollar ; the last (( pay-day drunk" had been rounded up and was now on his way to the guard-house, muttering a maudlin defiance to Erin's foes ; the sun was shining with scorch ing heat down upon the bed of pebbles which formed the parade-ground ; the flag hung limp and listless from the pudgy staff ; the horses were out on herd ; the scarlet-shouldered black birds, the cardinals, the sinsontes, and the jays had sought the deepest shadows ; there was no sound to drown the insistent buzz of the aggravating flies or the voice of the Recorder of the Garrison Court just assembled, which was trying Privates A. and B. and C. and D. and others, names and rank now forgotten, for having {i then and there," "on or about/' and "at or near" the post of Camp Grant, Arizona, committed sundry and divers crimes against the law and regulations when, straight across the parade, with the swiftness of a frightened deer, there ran a half or three-quarters naked Mexican, straight to the door of the " comandante's " quarters. He was almost barefooted, the shoes he had on being in splinters. His trousers had been scratched so by the thorns and briars that only rags were now pendent from his waist. His hat had been dropped in his terrified flight from some unexplained danger, which the wan face, almost concealed by matted locks, and the shirt covered with blood still flowing 22 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. freely from a wound in the chest, conclusively showed to have been an Apache ambuscade. "With faltering voice and in broken accents the sufferer ex plained that he was one of a party of more than thirty Mexi cans coming up from Tucson to work on the ranch of Kennedy and Israel, who lived about a mile from our post down the San Pedro. There were a number of women and several children with the train, and not a soul had the slightest suspicion of danger, when suddenly, on the head of the slope leading up to the long " mesa " just this side of the Canon del Oro, they had found themselves surrounded on three sides by a party of Apaches, whose strength was variously put at from thirty to fifty warriors. The Americans and Mexicans made the best fight possible, and succeeded in keeping back the savages until the women and children had reached a place of comparative safety ; but both Kennedy and Israel were killed, and a number of others killed or wounded, our informant being one of the latter, with a severe cut in the left breast, where a bullet had ploughed round his ribs without doing very serious damage. The Apaches fell to plundering the wagons, which were loaded with the general supplies that ranchmen were in those days compelled to keep in stock, for feeding the numbers of employees whom they had to retain to cultivate their fields, as well as to guard them, and the Mexicans, seeing this, made off as fast as their legs could carry them, under the guidance of such of their party as were familiar with the trails leading across the Santa Catalina range to the San Pedro and Camp Grant. One of these trails ran by way of Apache Springs at the northern extremity of the range, and was easy of travel, so that most of the people were safe, but we were strongly urged to lose no time in getting round by the longer road, along which the Apaches were believed to have pursued a few men. The Mexican, Domingo, had seen Sergeants Warfield and Mott, two old veterans, on his way through the post, and they, without waiting for orders, had the herd run in and saddles got out in anticipation of what their experience taught them was sure to come. Every man who could be put on horseback was mounted at once, without regard to his company or regiment, and in less than twenty minutes the first detachment was crossing THE RESCUING PARTY. 33 the San Pedro and entering the long defile known as the Santa Catalina Canon not very well equipped for a prolonged cam paign, perhaps, as some of the men had no water in canteens and others had only a handful of crackers for rations, but that made no difference. Our business was to rescue women and children surrounded by savages, and to do it with the least delay possible. At least, that was the way Colonel Dubois reasoned on the subject, and we had only our duty to do obey orders. A second detachment would follow after us, with a wagon containing water in kegs, rations for ten days, medical supplies, blankets, and every other essential for making such a scout as might become necessary. Forward ! was the word, and every heel struck flank and every horse pressed upon the bit. Do our best, we couldn't make very rapid progress through the caflon, which for its total length of twelve miles was heavy with shifting sand. Wherever there was a stretch of hard pan, no matter how short, we got the best time out of it that was possible. The dis tance seemed interminable, but we pressed on, passing the Four- mile "Walnut, on past the Cottonwood, slipping along without a word under the lofty walls which screened us from the rays of the sun, although the afternoon was still young. But in much less time than we had a right to expect we had reached the end of tlie bad road, and halted for a minute to have all loose cinches re- tightened and everything made ready for rapid travelling on to the Caflon del Oro. In front of us stretched a broken, hilly country, bounded on the east and west by the Tortolita and the Sierra Santa Catalina respectively. The summer was upon us, but the glories of the springtime had not yet faded from the face of the desert, which still displayed the splendors of millions of golden crocuses, with countless odorless verbenas of varied tints, and acres upon acres of nutritious grasses, at which our horses nibbled every time we halted for a moment. The canon of the Santa Catalina for more than four miles of its length is no wider than an ordinary street in a city, and is enclosed by walls rising one thousand feet above the trail. Wherever a foothold could be found, there the thorny- branched giant cactus stood sentinel, or the prickly plates of the nopal matted the face of the escarpment. High up on the wall of the cafion, one of the most prominent of the pitahayas or 24 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. giant cacti had been transfixed by the true aim of an Apache arrow, buried up to the feathers. For the beauties or eccentricities of nature we had no eyes. All that we cared to know was how long it would take to/ put us where the train had been ambushed and destroyed. So, on we pushed, taking a very brisk gait, and covering the ground with rapidity. The sun was going down in a blaze of scarlet and gold behind the Tortolita Eange, the Canon del Oro was yet several miles away, and still no signs of the party of which we were in such anxious search. " They must have been nearer the Canon del Oro than the Mexican thought," was the general idea, for we had by this time gamed the long mesa upon which we had been led to believe we should see the ruins of the wagons. We were now moving at a fast walk, in line, with carbines at an "advance," and everything ready for a fight to begin on either flank or in front, as the case might be ; but there was no enemy in sight. We deployed as skirmishers, so as to cover as much ground as possible, and pick up any dead body that might be lying behind the mesquite or the palo verde which lined the road. A sense of gloom spread over the little command, which had been hoping against hope to find the survivors alive and the savages Still at bay. But, though the coyote yelped to the moon, and flocks of quail whirred through the air when raised from their seclusion in the bushes, and funereal crows, perched upon the tops of the pitahayas, croaked dismal salutations, there was no sound of the human voices we longed to hear. But don't be too sure. Is that a coyote's cry or the wail of a fellow-creature in distress ? A coyote, of course. Yes, it is, and no, it isn't. Every one had his own belief, and would tolerate no dissent. " Hel-lup ! Hel-lup ! My God, hel-lup ! " " This way, Mott ! Keep the rest of the men back there on the road." In less than ten seconds we had reached a small arroyo, not very deep, run ning parallel to the road and not twenty yards from it, and there, weak and faint and covered with his own blood, was our poor, unfortunate friend, Kennedy. He was in the full possession of his faculties and able to recognize every one whom he knew and to tell a coherent story. As to the first part of the attack, he concurred with Domingo, but he furnished the additional infor mation that as soon as the Apaches saw that the greater number KENNEDY'S BRAVE FIGHT. 35 of the party had withdrawn with the women and children, of whom there were more than thirty all told, they made a bold charge to sweep down the little rear-guard which had taken its stand behind the wagons. Kennedy was sure that the Apaches had suffered severely, and told me where to look for the body of the warrior who had killed his partner, Israel. Israel had re ceived a death-wound in the head which brought him to his knees, but before he gave up the ghost his rifle, already in posi tion at his shoulder, was discharged and killed the tall, muscular young savage who appeared to be leading the attack. Kennedy kept up the unequal fight as long as he could, in spite of the loss of the thumb of his left hand, shot off at the first volley ; but when the Mexicans at each side of him fell, he drew his knife, cut the harness of the " wheeler" mule nearest him, sprang into the saddle, and charged right through the Apaches advancing a second time. His boldness disconcerted their aim, but they managed to plant an arrow in his breast and another in the ribs of his mule, which needed no further urging to break into a mad gallop over every rock and thorn in its front. Ken nedy could not hold the bridle with his left hand, and the pain in his lung was excruciating "Jes' like >s if I'd swallowed a coal o' fire, boys," he managed to gasp, half inarticulately. But he had run the mule several hundreds of yards, and was beginning to have a faint hope of escaping, when a bullet from his pursuers struck its hind-quarters and pained and frightened it so much that it bucked him over its head and plunged off to one side among the cactus and mesquite, to be seen no more. Kennedy, by great effort, reached the little arroyo in which we found him, and where he had lain, dreading each sound and expecting each moment to hear the Apaches coming to torture him to death. His fears were unfounded. As it turned out, fortunately for all concerned, the Apaches could not resist the temptation to plun der, and at once began the work of breaking open and pilfering every box and bundle the wagons contained, forgetting all about the Mexicans who had made their escape to the foot-hills, and Kennedy, who lay so very, very near them. Half a dozen good men were left under command of a sergeant to take care of Kennedy, while the rest hurried forward to see what was to be seen farther to the front. It was a ghastly sight, one which in its details I should like to 26 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. spare my readers. There were the hot embers of the new wagons, the scattered fragments of broken boxes, barrels, and packages of all sorts ; copper shells, arrows, bows, one or two broken rifles, torn and burned clothing. There lay all that was mortal of poor Israel, stripped of clothing, a small piece cut from the crown of the head, but thrown back upon the corpse the Apaches do not care much for scalping his heart cut out, but also thrown back near the corpse, which had been dragged to the fire of the burn ing wagons and had been partly consumed ; a lance wound in the back, one or two arrow wounds they may have been lance wounds, too, but were more likely arrow wounds, the arrows which made them having been burned out ; there were plenty of arrows lying around a severe contusion under the left eye, where he had been hit perhaps with the stock of a rifle or carbine, and the death wound from ear to ear, through which the brain had oozed. The face was as calm and resolute in death as Israel had been in life. He belonged to a class of frontiersmen of which few representatives now remain the same class to which belonged men like Pete Kitchen, the Duncans, of the San Pedro ; Darrel Duppa and Jack Townsend, of the Agua Fria ; men whose lives were a romance of adventure and danger, unwritten because they never frequented the towns, where the tenderfoot correspondent would be more likely to fall in with some border Munchausen, whose tales of privation and peril would be in the direct ratio of the correspondent's receptivity and credulity. It was now too dark to do anything more, so we brought up Kennedy, who seemed in such good spirits that we were certain he would pull through, as we could not realize that he had been hit by an arrow at all, but tried to console him with the notion that the small round hole in his chest, from which little if any blood had flown, had been made by a buck-shot or something like it. But Kennedy knew better. " No, boys," he said sadly, shaking his head, " it's all up with me. I'm a goner. I know it was an arrow, 'cause I broke the feather end off. I'm goin' to die." Sentinels were posted behind the bushes, and the whole com mand sat down to keep silent watch for the coming of the morrow. The Apaches might double back there was no know ing what they might do and it was best to be on our guard. The old rule of the frontier, as I learned it from men like Joe Felmer, Oscar Hutton, and Manuel Duran, amounted to this : RETURNING TO CAMP. 27 " When you see Apache ' sign/ be Jceerful ; V when you don' see nary sign, be more keerful." The stars shone out in their grandest effulgence, and the feeble rays of the moon were no added help to vision. There is only one region in the whole world, Arizona, where the full majesty can be comprehended of that text of Holy Writ which teaches : " The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma ment showeth His handiwork." Midnight had almost come, when the rumble of wheels, the rattle of harness, and the cracking of whips heralded the approach of wagons and ambulance and the second detachment of cavalry. They brought orders from Colo nel Dubois to return to the post as soon as the animals had had enough rest, and then as fast as possible, to enable all to start in pursuit of the Apaches, whose trail had been "cut "a mile or two above Felmer's, showing that they had crossed the Santa Oatalina Range, and were making for the precipitous coun try close to the head of the Aravaypa. The coming day found our party astir and hard at work. First, we hunted up the body of the Apache who had shot Israel. Lieutenant George Bacon, First Cavalry, found it on a shelf of rock, in a ravine not a hundred yards from where the white enemy lay, shot, as Israel was, through the head. We did not disturb it, but as much cannot be averred of the hungry and expectant coyotes and the raw-necked buzzards, which had already begun to draw near. The trail of the savages led straight toward the Santa Cata- lina, and a hurried examination disclosed a very curious fact, which later on was of great importance to the troops in pursuit. There had been a case of patent medicine in the wagons, and the Apaches had drunk the contents of the bottles, under the impression that they contained whiskey. The result was that, as the signs showed, there were several of the Indians seriously incapacitated from alcoholic stimulant of some kind, which had served as the menstruum for the drugs of the nostrum. They had staggered from cactus to cactus, falling into mesquite, in contempt of the thorns on the branches, and had lain sprawled at full length in the sand, oblivious of the danger incurred. It would have been a curious experience for the raiders could we have arrived twenty-four hours sooner. Fully an hour was consumed in getting the horses and mules 28 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. down to the water in the Canon del Oro, and in making a cup of coffee, for which there was the water brought along in the kegs in the wagons. Everything and everybody was all right, except ing Kennedy, who was beginning to act and talk strangely ; first exhilarated and then excited, petulant and despondent. His suf ferings were beginning to tell upon him, and he manifested a strange aversion to being put in the same vehicle with a dead man. "We made the best arrangement possible for the comfort of our wounded friend, for whom it seemed that the ambulance would be the proper place. But the jolting and the upright position he was compelled to take proved too much for him, and he begged to be allowed to recline at full length in one of the wagons. His request was granted at once ; only, as it happened, he was lifted into the wagon in which the stiff, stark corpse of Israel was glaring stonily at the sky. A canvas 'paulin was stretched over the corpse, half a dozen blankets spread out to make as soft a couch as could be expected, and then Kennedy was lifted in, and the homeward march resumed with rapid gait. Animals and men were equally anxious to leave far in the rear a scene of such horror, and without whip or spur we rolled rapidly over the gravelly "mesa," until we got to the head of the Santa Catalina Canon, and even there we progressed satisfactorily, as, notwithstanding the deep sand, it was all down grade into the post. In crossing the San Pedro, the wagon in which Kennedy was riding gave a lurch, throwing him to one side ; to keep himself from being bumped against the side, he grasped the first thing within reach, and this happened to be the cold, clammy ankle of the corpse. One low moan, or, rather, a groan, was all that showed Kennedy's consciousness of the undesirable companion ship of his ride. The incident didn't really make very much dif ference, however, as his last hours were fast drawing near, and Death had already summoned him. He breathed his last in the post hospital before midnight. An autopsy revealed the presence of a piece of headless arrow, four or five inches long, lodged in the left lung. The funeral ceremonies did not take much time. There was no lumber in that section of country for making coffins. Pack ing boxes, cracker boxes, anything that could be utilized, were made to serve the purpose, and generally none were used. The KENNEDY'S DEATH. AND BURIAL. 39 whole garrison turned out. A few words from the Book of Common Prayer "Man that is born of woman/' etc.; a few clods of earth rattling down ; then a layer of heavy rocks and spiny cactus, to keep the coyotes from digging up 'the bones; more earth ; and all was over, excepting the getting ready for the pursuit. This was to be prosecuted by Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing, an officer of wonderful experience in Indian warfare, who with his troop, "F" of the Third Cavalry, had killed more savages of the Apache tribe than any other officer or troop of the United States Army has done before or since. During the latter days of the preceding fall, 1869, he had struck a crushing blow at the courage of the Apaches infesting the country close to the Guadalupe Range in southwestern Texas, and had killed and wounded many of the adults, and captured a number of children and a herd of ponies. But Lieutenant Franklin Yeaton, a brave and exceedingly able officer, just out of West Point, was fatally wounded on our side, and the more Cushing brooded over the matter, the hotter flamed his anger, until he could stand it no longer, but resolved to slip back across country and try his luck over again. He had hauled Yeaton and the rest of the wounded for four marches on rudely improvised "travois" across the snow, which lay unusu ally deep that winter, until he found a sheltered camping-place near the PefLasco, a branch of the Pecos, where he left his impedi menta under a strong guard, and with the freshest horses and men turned back, rightly surmising that the hostiles would have given up following him, and would be gathered in their ruined camp, bewailing the loss of kindred. He had guessed rightly, and at the earliest sign of morning in the east was once again leading his men to the attack upon the Apaches, who, not knowing what to make of such an utterly unex pected onslaught, fled in abject terror, leaving many dead on the ground behind them. All this did not exactly compensate for the loss of Yeaton, but it served to let out some of Cushing's superfluous wrath, and keep him from exploding. Cushing belonged to a family which won deserved renown dur ing the War of the Rebellion. One brother blew up the ram Albe- marle; another died most heroically at his post of duty on the 30 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. battle-field of Gettysburg ; there was still another in the navy who died in service, I do not remember where ; and the one of whom I am speaking, who was soon to die at the hands of the Apaches, and deserves more than a passing word. He was about five feet seven in height, spare, sinewy, active as a cat ; slightly stoop-shouldered, sandy complexioned, keen gray or bluish-gray eyes, which looked you through when he spoke and gave a slight hint of the determination, coolness, and energy which had made his name famous all over the southwestern border. There is an alley named after him in Tucson, and there is, or was, when last I saw it, a tumble-down, worm-eaten board to mark his grave, and that was all to show where the great American nation had deposited the remains of one of its bravest. But I am anticipating altogether too much, and should be get ting ready to follow the trail of the marauders. Gushing didn't seem to be in any particular hurry about starting,, and I soon learned that he intended taking his ease about it, as he wanted to let the Indians be thrown off their guard completely and imag ine that the whites were not following their trail. Let them once suspect that a party was in pursuit, and they would surely break up their trail and scatter like quail, and no one then could hope to do anything with them. Every hoof was carefully looked at, and every shoe tacked on tight ; a few extra shoes for the fore-feet were taken along in the pack train, with fifteen days' rations of coffee, hard tack, and bacon, and one hundred rounds of ammunition. All that could be extracted from the Mexicans in the way of information was pondered over, and submitted to the considera tion of Felmer and Manuel Duran, the guides who were to con duct the column. Some of the Mexican men were composed and fully recovered from the effects of their terrible experience, and those who were wounded were doing well ; but the women still trembled at the mere name of an Apache, and several of them did nothing but tell their beads in gratitude to Heaven for the miracle of their escape. In Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Texas it has been remarked that one has to ascend the bed of a stream in order to get water. This rule is especially true of the Aravaypa. There is not a drop, as a usual thing, at its mouth, but if you ascend the cafion five or six miles, the current trickles above the sand, and AGAIN ON THE TRAIL. 31 a mile or two more will bring you to a stream of very respectable dimensions, flowing over rocky boulders of good size, between towering walls which screen from the sun, and amid scenery which is picturesque, romantic, and awe-inspiring. The raiders left the caflon of the Aravaypa at its most precipitous part, not far from the gypsum out-crop, and made a straight shoot for the mouth of the San Carlos. This, however, was only a blind, and inside of three miles there was no trail left, certainly not going in the direc tion of Mount Turnbull. Manuel Duran was not at all worried ; he was an Apache him self, and none of the tricks of the trade had the slightest effect upon his equanimity. He looked over the ground carefully. Ah ! here is a stone which has been overturned in its place, and here some one has cut that branch of mesquite ; and here look ! we have it, the shod-hoof track of one of Israel's mules ! There is nothing the matter at all. The Apaches have merely scattered and turned, and instead of going toward the junction of the Gala and the San Carlos, have bent to the west and started straight for the mouth of the San Pedro, going down by the head of Deer Creek, and over to the Eock Creek, which rises in the "Dos Narices " Mountain, not twelve miles from Grant itself. Patient search, watching every blade of grass, every stone or bush, and marching constantly, took the command to the mouth of the San Pedro, across the Grila, up to the head of the Disappointment Creek, in the Mescal Mountains, and over into the foot-hills of the Pinal and not into the foot-hills merely, but right across the range at its highest point. The Apaches were evidently a trifle nervous, and wanted to make as big a circuit as possible to bewilder pursuers ; but all their dodges were vain. From the top of the Pinal a smoke was detected rising in the valley to the north and east, and shortly afterward the evidence that a party of squaws and children, laden with steamed mescal, had joined the raiders, and no doubt were to remain with them until they got home, if they, were not already home. Gushing would hardly wait till the sun had hidden behind the Superstition Mountains or the Matitzal before he gave the order to move on. Manuel was more prudent, and not inclined to risk anything by undue haste. He would wait all night before he would risk disappointment in 32 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. an attack upon an enemy whom he had followed so far. Man uel wouldn't allow any of the Americans to come near while he made his preparations for peeping over the crest of the "divide." Tying a large wisp of palmilla or bear's grass about his head, he crawled or wriggled on hands and knees to the position giving the best view down the valley, and made all the observations de sired. The night was long and cold and dark, and the men had been at least an hour in position overlooking the smouldering fires of the enemy, and ready to begin the attaek the moment that it should be light enough to see one's hand in front of him, when an accidental occurrence precipitated an engagement. One of the old men one of the party of mescal gatherers who had joined the returning war-party felt cold and arose from his couch to stir the embers into a blaze. The light played fitfully upon his sharp features and gaunt form, disclosing every muscle. To get some additional fuel, he advanced toward the spot where Gushing crouched down awaiting the favorable moment for giving the signal to fire. The savage suspects something, peers ahead a little, and is satisfied that there is danger close by. He turns to escape, crying out that the Americans have come, and awakening all in the camp. The soldiers raised a terrific yell and poured in a volley which laid low a number of the Apaches ; the latter scarcely tried to fight in the place where they stood, as the light of the fire made their presence perfectly plain to the attacking party. ,So their first idea was to seek a shelter in the rocks from which to pick off the advancing skirmishers. In this they were unsuc cessful, and death and ruin rained down upon them. They made the best fight they could, but they could do nothing. Manuel saw something curious rushing past him in the gloom. He brought rifle to shoulder and fired, and, as it turned out, killed two at one shot a great strong warrior, and the little boy of five or six years old whom he had seized, and was trying to hurry to a place of safety, perched upon his shoulders. It was a ghastly spectacle, a field of blood won with but slight .loss to ourselves. But I do not care to dilate upon the scene, as it is my intention to give only a meagre outline description of what Arizona was like prior to the assignment of General Crook to the command. The captured women and boys stated they ROUT OF THE RAIDERS. 33 were a band of Finals who had just returned from a raid down into Sonora before making the attack upon the wagons of Ken nedy and Israel. Some of their bravest warriors were along, and they would have made a determined fight had they not all been more or less under the influence of the stuff they had swallowed out of the bottles captured with the train. Many had been very drunk, and all had been sickened, and were not in condition to look out for surprise as they ordinarily did. They had thought that by doubling across the country from point to point, any Americans who might try to follow would surely be put off the scent ; they did not know that there were Apaches with the soldiers. CHAPTER III. THE RETURN TO CAMP GRANT LANCED TO DEATH BY APACHES THE KILLING OF MILLER AND TAPPAN COMPANY QUAR TERS APACHE CAPTIVES THE CLOUD-BURST APACHE CORN-FIELDS MEETING COLONEL SANFORD ENTRAPPED IN AN APACHE AMBUSCADE AN OLD-TIMER'S REMINISCENCES OF TUCSON FUNERAL CROSSES ON THE ROADSIDE PADRE EUSEBIO KINO FIRST VIEW OF TUCSON THE " SHOO FLY " RESTAURANT. OF the return march very little need be said. The story would become too long, and there would be needless repe tition if an attempt were to be made to describe each scout in detail. There are others to come of much more importance, and covering the same region, so that the reader will lose nothing by the omission. There was the usual amount of rough mountain climbing, wearing out shoes and patience and nerve strength all at one and the same time ; there was the usual deprivation of water to be expected in the arid wastes of southern Arizona, where springs are few and far between ; there were the usual tricks for getting along without much to drink, such as putting a pebble or twig in the mouth to induce a more copious flow of saliva ; and when camp was made and the water was found to be not all that it might be, there were other tricks for cleaning it, or, at least, caus ing a deposition of the earthy matter held in suspension, by cut ting up a few plates of the nopal and letting them remain in the kettle for a short time, until their mucilaginous juice had precip itated everything. But a still better plan was to improve the good springs, which was a labor of love with officers and men, and many a fine water hole in Arizona has been the scene of much hard work in digging out, building up with cracker boxes or something to hold the water and keep it from soaking into the earth. ARIZONA HEAT. 35 Camp Grant was reached at last, and the prisoners turned over to the care of the guard, and Lieutenant Gushing, his first duty in the Territory accomplished with so much credit to himself and his men, made ready to start out on another and a longer trip just as soon as the signal should be given by the post commander. Our troop was peculiarly situated. It had a second mount of ponies, captured from the Apaches against whom Gushing had done such good service in southwestern Texas. Orders came down in due time from San Francisco to turn them in and have them sold by the quartermaster ; but until these orders came and owing to the slowness of mail communications in those days, they did not come for several months we had the advantage of being able to do nearly twice as much work as troops less fort unately placed. The humdrum life of any post in Arizona in those days was enough to drive one crazy. The heat in most of them became simply unendurable, although here the great dryness of the at mosphere proved a benefit. Had the air been humid, very few of our garrison would now be alive to tell of temperatures of one hundred and twenty and over, and of days during the whole twenty-four hours of which the thermometer did not register below the one hundred notch. There was a story current that the heat had one time become so excessive that two thermometers had to be strapped together to let the mercury have room to climb. That was before my arrival, and is something for which I do not care to vouch. I give the story as it was given to me by my friend, Jack Long, of whom I am soon to speak. In every description of Arizona that I have ever seen, and I claim to be familiar with most if not all that has appeared in print, there occurs the story of the soldier who came back to Fort Yuma after his blankets, finding the next world too cold to suit him. I make reference to the story because many worthy people would find it hard to believe that a man had been in Arizona who did not tell this story in his first chapter, but it has grown to be such a mouldy military chestnut that I may be pardoned for omit ting it. There were all kinds of methods of killing the hours. One that interested everybody for a while was the battles which we stirred up between the nests of red and black ants, which could 36 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. be found in plenty and of great size close to the post. I have seen the nests in question three or four feet high, and not less than six feet long, crowded with industrious population. The way to start the battle was to make a hole in each nest and insert cans which had lately been emptied of peaches or other sweets. These would soon fill with the battalions of the two colors, and could then be poured into a basin, where the combat a outrance never failed to begin at once. The red ants were much the braver, and one of that color would tackle two, and even three, of the black. If the rumpus lasted for any length of time, queens would appear, as if to superintend what was going on. At least, that was our impression when we saw the large- bodied, yellow-plush insects sallying from the depths of the nests. We had not been back in the post a week before we had some thing to talk about. A Mexican who was doing some work for the Government came up to confer with the commanding officer as to details, lie left the adjutant's office before mid-day, and had not gone one thousand yards less, indeed, than rifle-shot from the door, when an Apache, lurking in ambush behind a clump of palmilla, pierced him through and through with a lance, and left him dead, weltering in his own blood. To attempt pursuit was worse than useless, and all we could do was to bury the victim. It was this peculiarity of the Apaches that made them such a terror to all who came in contact with them, and had compelled the King of Spain to maintain a force of four thousand dragoons to keep in check a tribe of naked savages, who scorned to wear any protection against the bullets of the Castilians, who would not fight when pursued, but scattered like their own crested mountain quail, and then hovered on the flanks of the whites, and were far more formidable when dispersed than when they were moving in compact bodies. This was simply the best mil itary policy for the Apaches to adopt wear out the enemy by vexatious tactics, and by having the pursuit degenerate into a will-o'-th'-wisp chase. The Apaches could find food on every hill side, and the water-holes, springs, and flowing streams far up in the mountains were perfectly well known to them. The Caucasian troops, of whatever nationality, would wander APACHE TACTICS. 37 about, half-crazed with thirst, and maddened by the heat of the day or chilled by the cold winds of night in the mountains, and unable to tell which plants were of value as food and which were not. The Apache was in no sense a coward. He knew his business, and played his cards to suit himself. He never lost a shot, and netfer lost a warrior in a fight where a brisk run across the nearest ridge would save his life and exhaust the heavily clad soldier who endeavored to catch him. Apaches in groups of two and three, and even individual Apaches, were wont to steal in close to the military posts and ranch os, and hide behind some sheltering rock, or upon the summit of some conveniently sit uated hill, and there remain for days, scanning the movements of the Americans below, and waiting for a chance to stampede a herd, or kill a herder or two, or "jump" a wagon-train. They knew how to disguise themselves so thoroughly that one might almost step upon a warrior thus occupied before he could detect his presence. Stripped naked, with head and shoulders wrapped up in a bundle of yucca shoots or " sacaton " grass, and with body rubbed over with the clay or sand along which it wriggled as sinuously and as venomously as the rattler itself, the Apache could and did approach to within ear-shot of the whites, and even entered the enclosures of the military camps, as at Grant and Crittenden, where we on several occasions discovered his foot-prints alongside the "ollas," or water-jars. On such occasions he preferred to employ his lance or bow, because these made no sound, and half or even a whole day might elapse before the stiffened and bloody corpse of the herder or wagoner would be found, and the presence of Indians in the vicinity become known. At least twenty such examples could be given from my own knowledge, occurring at Prescott, Tucson, Camp Grant, Camp Crittenden, Tres Alamos, Florence, "William son's Valley, and elsewhere. They were regarded as the natural features of the country, and every settler rather expected them as a matter of course. Well did Torquemada, the Spanish writer (A.D. 1709), deplore the inability of the Spaniards to make head way against this tribe of naked savages. Californians old enough to remember the days when San Francisco had a Mining Stock Exchange, may recall the names of 38 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Lent and Harpending, who were two of the most prominent of the members. An expedition, equipped at the expense of these gen tlemen, made its way into Arizona to examine the mining " pros pects " discovered in the vicinity of Fort Bowie. They had to come overland, of course,, as there were no railroads, and wagons had to be taken from Los Angeles, the terminal point of steamer navigation, unless people preferred to keep on down to San Diego, and then cross the desert, via Fort Yuma, and on up the dusty valley of the Gila River to Tucson or Florence. The party of which I am now speaking was under the command of two gentlemen, one named Gatchell and the other Curtis, from the Comstock Mines in Nevada, and had reached and passed the picturesque little adobe town of Florence, on the Gila, and was progressing finely on the road toward Tucson, when " Cocheis," the bold leader of the Chiricahuas, on his march up from Sonora to trade stolen horses and have a talk with the Finals, swooped down upon them. It was the old, old Arizona story. No one suspected danger, because there had been no signs of Indians on the trip since leaving the villages of the peaceful Pimas, on the Gila, near Maricopa Wells. It was a perfect duplication of the Kennedy-Israel affair, almost to the slightest details. Mr. Curtis received a bad wound in the lungs. Mr. Gatchell was also wounded, but how severely I cannot remember, for the very good reason that there was so much of that kind of thing going on during the period of my stay at Camp Grant that it is really impossible to avoid mixing up some of the minor details of the different incidents so closely resembling one another. When this party reached the post of Camp Grant they could easily have demanded the first prize at a tramp show ; they were not clothed in rags they were not clothed in anything. When they escaped .from the wagon-train they were wearing nothing but underclothing, on account of the excessive heat of the day ; when they got into Camp Grant most of the underwear had disappeared, torn off by the cactus, palo verde, mesquite, mescal, and other thorny vegetation run against in their flight. Their feet evidenced the rough, stony nature of the ground over which they had tramped and bumped, and thorns stuck in their legs, feet, and arms. There was not much done for these poor wretches, all of whom seemed to be gentlemen of education and THE WOUNDED SOLDIER'S TRAIL. 39 refinement. We shared the misery of the post with them, which was about all we could pretend to do. Vacant rooms were found for them in the Israel ranch., and there they stayed for a few days, just long enough for every one to catch the fever. Before we start out in pursuit of the attacking Apaches, let me relate the story told all over southern Arizona about the spot where this Gratchell-Curtis train had been surprised. It was known as the scene of the ambuscade of the Miller-Tappan detail, and frontier tale-tellers used to while away the sultry hours imme diately after the setting of the sun in relating how the soldiers under Carroll had been ambushed and scattered by the onslaught of the Apaches, their commander, Lieutenant Carroll, killed at the first fire. One of the survivors became separated from his comrades in their headlong flight into Camp Grant. What be came of him was never fully known, but he had been seen to fall wounded in the head or face, and the soldiers and Mexicans seemed to be of but one opinion as to the direction in which he had strayed ; so there was no difficulty in getting a band of expert trailers to go out with the troops from the camp, and after bury ing the dead, make search for the missing man. His foot-prints were plainly discernible for quite a distance in the hard sand and gravel, until they led to a spring or "water-hole," where one could plainly read the "sign" that the wounded man had stopped, knelt down, drunk, washed his wound, torn off a small piece of his blouse, perhaps as a bandage, and written his name on a rock in his own blood. So far, so good ; the Mexicans who had been in the searching party did not object to telling that much, but anything beyond was told by a shrug of the shoulders and a " Quien sabe ? " One day it happened that Jose Maria was in a communicative mood, and I induced him to relate what he knew. His story amounted to just this : After leaving the " water-hole/' the wounded man had wandered aimlessly in different directions, and soon began to stagger from bush to bush ; his strength was nearly gone, and with frequency he had taken a seat on the hard gravel under such shade as the mesquites afforded. After a while other tracks came in on the trail alongside of those of the man they were the tracks of an enormous mountain lion ! The beast had run up and down along the trail for a short distance, and then bounded on in the direction taken by the 40 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. wanderer. The last few bounds measured twenty-two feet, and then there were signs of a struggle, and of SOMETHING having been dragged off through the chapparal and over the rocks, and that was all. Our men were ready for the scout, and so were those of the de tachment of "K" Troop, First Cavalry, who were to form part of our expedition a gallant troop and a fine regiment. The quarters were all in bustle and confusion, and even at their best would have looked primitive and uncouth. They were made of unhewn logs set upright into the ground and chinked with mud, and roofed in the same early English style, with the addi tion of a ceiling of old pieces of canvas to keep the centipedes from dropping down. On the walls were a couple of banjos, and there were intima tions that the service of the troop had been of a decidedly active nature, in the spoils of Apache villages clustered against the cot- tonwood saplings. There were lances with tips of obsidian, and others armed with the blades of old cavalry sabres ; quivers of coyote and mountain lion skin filled with arrows, said by the Mexican guides to be poisonous ; and other relics of aboriginal ownership in raw-hide playing-cards, shields, and one or two of the century-plant fiddles. The gloom of the long sleeping room was relieved by the bright colors of a few Navajo blankets, and there hung from the rafters large earthenware jars, called "ollas," the manufacture of the peaceful Papagoes, in which gallons of water cooled by rapid evaporation. There were no tin wash-basins, but a good substitute was found in the pretty Apache baskets, woven so tightly of grasses and roots that water could no more leak through them than it could through the better sort of the Navajo blankets. A half a dozen, maybe more, of the newspaper illustrations and cartoons of the day were pasted in spots where they would be most effective, and over in the coolest corner was the wicker cage of a pet mocking-bird. There were other pets by this time in the Apache children cap tured in the skirmishes already had with the natives. The two oldest of the lot "Sunday" and "Dandy Jim" were never given any dinner until they had each first shot an arrow into the neck of an olive-bottle inserted into one of the adobe walls of the A CANON FRESHET. 41 quartermaster's corral. The ease with which these youngsters not over nine or ten years old did this used to surprise me, but it seemed to make them regard the Americans as a very peculiar people for demanding such a slight task. Out on the trail again, down the San Pedro and over the Gila, but keeping well to the west until we neared the Mineral Creek country ; then up across the lofty Final Range, on whose summits the cool breezes were fragrant with the balsamic odors of the tall, straight pines, over into the beautiful little nook known as Mason's Valley, in which there was refreshing grass for the ani mals and a trickling stream of pure water to slake their thirst. Then back to the eastward until we struck the waters of the Final Creek, and had followed it down to the " Wheat Fields/' and still no signs of Indians. The rainy season had set in, and every track was obliterated almost as soon as made. One night we bivouacked at a spot not far from where the mining town of Globe now stands, and at a ledge of rocks which run across the valley of Final Creek, but part for a few feet to permit the feeble current to flow through. The sky was com paratively clear, a few clouds only flitting across the zenith. Back of us, hanging like a shroud over the tops of the Final, were heavy, black masses, from whose pendulous edges flashed the lightning, and from whose cavernous depths roared and growled the thunder. " That looks very much like a cloud-burst coming, " said Gushing ; *' better be on the safe side, anyhow." So he gave or ders to move all the bedding and all the supplies of the pack- train higher up the side of the hill. The latter part of the order was obeyed first, and almost if not quite all the ammunition, bacon, coffee, and sugar had been carried out of reach of possible danger, and most of the blankets and carbines had been shifted everything, in fact, but the hard tack when we noticed that the volume of water in the creek had unaccountably increased, and the next moment came the warning cry : " Look out ! Here she comes ! " A solid wall of water I do not care to say how many feet high was rushing down the cation, sweeping all before it, and crushing a path for itself over the line along which our blankets had been spread so short a time previously. The water didn't make very much noise. There was no sound 42 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. but a SISH ! That meant more than my pen can say. All that we had carried to the higher slopes of the cafion side was saved. All that we had not been able to move was swept away, but there was nothing of value to any one excepting a mule belonging to one of the guides, which was drowned, and a lot of harness or rigging from the pack-train, which, with the hard tack, found a watery grave. Gushing, too, would have been swept off in the current had he not been seized in the strong grasp of Sergeant Warfield and " Big Dan Miller/' two of the most powerful men in the troop. The rain soaked through us all night, and we had to make the best of it until dawn, when we discovered to our great surprise and satisfaction that the stream, which had been gorged between the rocks at our camp, widened below, and this had allowed the current to expand and to slacken, dropping here and there in the valley most of the plunder which was of consequence to us, espe cially the hard bread. All this meant an exasperating delay of twenty-four hours to dry our blankets upon the rocks, and to spread out our sodden food, and save as much of it as we could from mildew. From there we made a detour over to Pinto Creek, where I may inform those of my readers who take an interest in such things, there are one or two exceptionally well-preserved cliff- dwellings, which we examined with much curiosity. Not far from there we came upon the corn-fields of a band of Apaches, and destroyed them, eating as many of the roasting ears as we could, and feeding the rest to our stock. Such were the military instructions of twenty and twenty-five years ago. As soldiers we had to obey, even if we could feel that these orders must have been issued under a misconception of the Indian character. The more the savage is attached to the soil by the ties of a remunerative husbandry, the more is he weaned from the evil impulses which idleness engenders. This proposi tion seems' just as clear as that two and two make four, but some people learn quickly, and others learn slowly, and preachers, school-teachers, and military people most slowly of all. Our presence was discovered by the Apache look-outs before we were able to effect a surprise, or, to be candid, we stumbled in upon the nook, or series of nooks, in which this planting was going on, and beyond exchanging a few shots and wounding, as ESCAPE OP THE PRISONERS. 43 we learned afterward, a couple of the young men, did not do much at that moment ; but we did catch two squaws, from whom some information was extracted. They agreed to lead us to where there was another " ranche- ria " a few miles off, in another canon over toward Tonto Creek. We found the enemy, sure enough, but in such an inaccessible position, up among lofty hills covered with a dense jungle of scrub oak, that we could do nothing beyond firing shots in reply to those directed against us, and were so unfortunate as to lose our prisoners, who darted like jack-rabbits into the brush, and were out of sight in a flash. Why did we not catch them again ? Oh, well, that is something that no one could do but the gentle reader. The gentle reader generally is able to do more than the actors on the ground, and he may as well be allowed a monopoly in the present case. We growled and grumbled a good deal at our hard luck, and made our way to the Mesquite Springs, where the ranch of Ar chie Mac Intosh. has since been erected, and there went into camp for the night. Early the next morning we crossed the Salt River and ascended the Tonto Creek for a short distance, passing through a fertile valley, once well settled by a tribe whose stone houses now in ruins dotted the course of the stream, and whose pottery, stone axes, and other vestiges, in a condition more or less perfect, could be picked up in any quantity. We turned back, recrossed the Salt or Salado, and made a long march into the higher parts of the Sierra Apache, striking a fresh trail, and fol lowing it energetically until we had run it into the camp of a scouting party of the First Cavalry, from Camp MacDowell, under Colonel George B. Sanford, who had had a fight with these same Indians the previous day, and killed or captured most of them. Sanford and his command treated us most kindly, and made us feel at home with them. They did not have much to offer be yond bacon and beans ; but a generous, hospitable gentleman can offer these in a way that will make them taste like canvas-back and terrapin. When we left Sanford, we kept on in the direc tion of the Sombrero Butte and the mouth of Cherry Creek, to the east, and then headed for the extreme sources of the San Carlos River, a trifle to the south. Here we had the good luck to come upon a village of Apaches, who abandoned all they possessed and fled to the rocks as soon 44 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. as our rapid advance was announced in the shrill cries of their vedettes perched upon the higher peaks. In this place the "medicine-men" had been engaged in some of their rites, and had drawn upon the ground half -completed fig ures of circles, crosses, and other lines which we had no time to examine. We looked through the village, whose "jacales" were of unusually large size, and while interested in this work the enemy began to gather in the higher hills, ready to pick off all who might become exposed to their aim. They had soon crawled down within very close proximity, and showed great daring in coming up to us. I may be pardoned for describing in something of detail what happened to the little party which stood with me looking down, or trying to look down, into a low valley or collec tion of swales beneath us. Absolutely nothing could be seen but the red clay soil, tufted here and there with the Spanish bayonet or the tremulous yucca. So well satisfied were we all that no Apaches were in the valley that I had already given the order to dismount and descend the steep flanks of the hill to the lower ground, but had hardly done so before there was a puff, a noise, and a tzit ! all at once, from the nearest clump of sacaton or yucca, not more than a hundred yards in front. The bullet whizzed ominously between our heads and struck my horse in the neck, ploughing a deep but not dangerous wound. Our horses, being fresh " broncos," became disturbed, and it was all we could do to keep them from breaking away. When we had quieted them a little, we saw two of the Apaches stark naked, their heads bound up with yucca, and their bodies red with the clay along which they had crawled in order to fire the shot scampering for their lives down the valley. We got down the hill, leading our horses, and then took after the fugitives, all the time yelling to those of our comrades whom we could see in advance to head the Indians off. One of the sav ages, who seemed to be the younger of the two, doubled up a side ravine, but the other, either because he was run down or because he thought he could inflict some damage upon us and then escape, remained hidden behind a large mesquite. Our men made the grievous mistake of supposing that the Indian 's gun was not loaded. Only one gun had been seen in the possession of the two whom we had pursued, and this having been discharged, we were certain that the savage had not had time to reload it. AN APACHE SHARPSHOOTER. 45 It is quite likely that each of the pair had had a rifle, and that the young boy, previous to running up the canon to the left, had given his weapon to his elder, who had probably left his own on the ground after once firing it. Be this as it may, we were greeted with another shot, which killed the blacksmith of "K" Troop, First Cavalry, and right behind the shot came the big Indian himself, using his rifle as a shillelah, beating Corporal Costello over the bead with it and knocking him senseless, and then turning upon Sergeant Har rington and a soldier of the First Cavalry named Wolf, dealing each a blow on the skull, which would have ended them had not his strength begun to ebb away with his life-blood, now flowing freely from the death-wound through the body which we had succeeded in inflicting. One horse laid up, three men knocked out, and another man killed was a pretty steep price to pay for the killing of this one Indian, but we consoled ourselves with the thought that the Apaches had met with a great loss in the death of so valiant a warrior. We had had other losses on that day, and the hostiles had left other dead ; our pack-train was beginning to show signs of wear and tear from the fatigue of climbing up and down these stony, brush-covered, arid mountain-sides. One of the mules had broken its neck or broken its back by slipping off a steep trail, and all needed some rest and recuperation. From every peak now curled the ominous signal smoke of the enemy, and no further surprises would be possible. Not all of the smokes were to be taken as signals; many of them might be signs of death, as the Apaches at that time adhered to the old custom of abandoning a village and setting it on fire the moment one of their number died, and as soon as this smoke was seen the adjacent villages would send up answers of sympathy. Gushing thought that, under all the circumstances, it would be good policy to move over to some eligible position where we could hold our own against any concentration the enemy might be tempted to make against us, and there stay until the excitement occasioned by our presence in the country had abated. The spring near the eastern base of the Final Mountains, where the " killing " of the early spring had taken place, suggested itself, and thither we marched as fast as our animals could make the trip. But we had counted without our host; the waters 46 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. were so polluted with dead bodies, there were so many skulls in the spring itself, that no animal, much less man, would imbibe of the fluid. The ground was strewn with bones ribs and arms and vertebrae dragged about by the coyotes, and the smell was so vile that, tired as all were, no one felt any emotion but one of delight when Gushing gave the order to move on. The Apaches had been there to bury their kinsfolk and bewail their loss, and in token of grief and rage had set fire to all the grass for several miles, and consequently it was to the direct ben efit of all our command, two-footed or four-footed, to keep mov ing until we might find a better site for a bivouac. We did not halt until we had struck the San Carlos, some thirty-five miles to the east, and about twelve or fourteen miles above its junction with the Gila. Here we made camp, intending to remain several days. A rope was stretched from one to the other of two stout sycamores, and to this each horse and mule was attached by its halter. Pickets were thrown out upon the neighboring eminences, and a detail from the old guard was promptly working at bringing in water and wood for the camp- fires. The grooming began, and ended almost as soon as the welcome cry of "Supper!" resounded. The coffee was boiling hot ; the same could be said of the bacon ; the hard tack had mildewed a little during the wet weather to which it had been exposed, but there was enough roasted mescal from the Indian villages to eke out our supplies. The hoofs and back of every animal had been examined and cared for, and then blankets were spread out and all hands made ready to turn in. There were no tents, as no shelter was needed, but each veteran was wise enough to scratch a little semicircle in the ground around his head, to turn the rain should any fall during the night, and to erect a wind-brake to screen him from the chill breezes which sometimes blew about midnight. Although there was not much danger of a night-attack from the Apaches, who almost invariably made their onset with the first twinkle of the coming dawn in the east, yet a careful watch was always kept, to frustrate their favorite game of crawling on hands and feet up to the horses, and sending an arrow into the herd or the sentinel, as might happen to be most convenient. Not far from this camp I saw, for the first time, a fight be tween a tarantula and a " tarantula hawk." Manuel Duran had A TARANTULA FIGHT. 47 always insisted that the gray tarantula could whip the black one, and that there was something that flew about in the evening that could and would make the quarrelsome gray tarantula seek safety in abject flight. It was what we used to call in my school-boy days "the devil's darning-needle " which made its appearance, and seemed to worry the great spider very much. The tarantula stood up on its hind legs, and did its best to ward off impending fate, but it was no use. The "hawk" hit the tarantula in the back and apparently paralyzed him, and then seemed to be pull ing at one of the hind legs. I have since been informed that there is some kind of a fluid "injected into the back of the taran tula which acts as a stupefier, and at the same time the " hawk " deposits its eggs there, which, hatching, feed upon the spider. For all this I cannot vouch, as I did not care to venture too near those venomous reptiles and insects of that region, at least not until after I had acquired more confidence from greater fami liarity with them. We saw no more Indian "sign" on that trip, which had not been, however, devoid of all incident. And no sooner had we arrived at Camp Grant than we were out again, this time guided by an Apache squaw, who had come into the post during our absence, and given to the commanding offi cer a very consistent story of ill-treatment at the hands of her people. She said that her husband was dead, killed in a fight with the troops, and that she and her baby had not been treated with the kindness which they had a right to expect. I do not remember in what this ill-treatment consisted, but most likely none of the brothers of the deceased had offered to marry the widow and care for her and her little one, as is the general cus tom, in which the Apaches resemble the Hebrews of ancient times. If the troops would follow her, she would guide them into a very bad country, where there was a "rancheria" which could be attacked and destroyed very readily. So back we went, this time on foot, carrying our rations on our backs, crossing the Pinaleno to the south of the Aravaypa, and ascending until we reached the pine forest upon its summit j then down into the valley at the extreme head of the Aravaypa, and over into the broken country on the other side of the Gabilan, or Hawk Canon. 48 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. Everything had happened exactly as the squaw had predicted it would, and she showed that she was familiar with the slightest details of the topography, and thus increased our confidence in what we had to expect to such an extent that she was put in the lead, and we followed on closely, obeying all her directions and instructions. Our men refrained from whistling, from talking almost, I might say, from breathing because she insisted upon such perfect silence while on the march. There were few instructions given, and these were passed from mouth to mouth in whispers. No one dared strike a match, lest the flash should alarm some of the enemy's pickets. We had no pack- train, and that great source of noise the shouting of packers to straying mules was done away with. All our rations were on our own backs, and with the exception of one led mule, loaded with a couple of thousand rounds of extra ammunition, we had absolutely nothing to impede the most rapid march. We walked slowly over the high mountains, and down into deep ravines, passing through a country which seemed well adapted for the home of Indians. There were groves of acorn-bearing oaks, a considerable amount of mescal, Spanish bayonet, some mesquite, and a plenty of grasses whose seeds could be gathered by the squaws in their long, conical baskets, and then ground between two oblong, half-round stones into a meal which would make a pretty good mush. It was very dark and quite chilly as dawn drew nigh, and every one was shivering with cold and hunger and general ner vous excitement. The squaw whispered that we were close upon the site of the "rancheria," which was in a little grassy amphi theatre a short distance in front. Slowly we drew nearer and nearer to the doomed village, and traversed the smooth, open place whereon the young bucks had been playing their great game of "mushka," in which they roll a hoop and then throw lance staves to fall to the ground as the hoop ceases to roll. Very near this was a slippery-faced rock either slate or basalt, the darkness did not permit a close examination down which the children had been sliding to the grass, and, just within biscuit- throw, the (( jacales" of saplings and branches. Two of our party crawled up to the village, which preserved an ominous silence. There were no barking dogs, no signs of fire, no wail of babes to testify to the presence of human or animal IN AN APACHE AMBUSCADE. 49 life in one word, the Apaches had taken the alarm and aban doned their habitation. But they did not leave us shivering long in doubt as to where they had gone, but at once opened from the peaks with rifles, and at the first fire wounded two of our men. It was entirely too dark for them to do much harm, and utterly beyond our power to do anything against them. Their position was an impregnable one on the crest of the surrounding ridges, and protected by a heavy natural cheval defrise of the scrub oak and other thorny vegetation of the region. Gushing ordered the command to fall back on the trail and take up position on the hill in the pass overlooking the site of the "rancheria." This we did without difficulty and without loss. The Apaches continued their firing, and would have made us pay dear for our rashness in coming into their home had not our withdrawal been covered by a heavy fog, which screened the flanks of the mountains until quite a late hour in the morning, something very unusual in Arizona, which is remarkably free from mists at all seasons. Indignation converged upon the wretched squaw who had in duced us to come into what had all the appearance of a set am buscade. The men had bound her securely, and a rope was now brought out a lariat and cries were heard on all sides to " hang her, hang her ! " It is easy to see now that she may have been perfectly innocent in her intentions, and that it was not through collusion with the people in the village, but rather on account of her running away from them, that the Apaches had been on the look-out for an advance from the nearest military post ; but on that cold, frosty morning, when all were cross and tired and vexed with disappointment, it looked rather ominous for the woman for a few minutes. She was given the benefit of the doubt, and to do the men justice, they were more desirous of scaring than of killing her for her supposed treachery. She stuck to her story ; she was dissatisfied with her people on account of bad treatment, and wanted to lead us to a surprise of their home. She did not pre tend to say how it came about that they were ready for us, but said that some of their young men out hunting, or squaws out cutting and burning mescal, might have seen us coming up the mountain, or "cut" our trail the night previous, and given the alarm. She would stay with us as long as we chose to remain in 50 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. those hills, but her opinion was that nothing could now be done with the people of that " rancheria," because the whole country would be alarmed with signal smokes, and every mountain would have a picket on the look-out for us. Better return to the camp and wait until everything had quieted down, and then slip out again. There was still a good deal of growling going on, and not all of the men were satisfied with her talk. They shot angry glances at her, and freely expressed their desire to do her bodily harm. which threats she could perfectly understand without needing the slightest knowledge of our language. To keep her from slipping off as the two other squaws had done a fortnight pre viously, she was wrapped from head to feet with rope, so that it was all she could do to bivatho. much less think of escaping. Another rope fastened her to a palo verde close to the little tire at which our coffee was made, and alongside whose flickering embers the sentinel paced as night began to draw its curtains near. She lay like a log, making not the slightest noise or move ment, but to all appearances perfectly reconciled to the situa tion, and, after a while, fell off into a profound sleep. We had what was known as "a running guard," which means that every man in the camp takes his turn at the duty of senti nel during the night. This made the men on post have about half to three-quarters of an hour's duty each. Each of those posted near the prisoner gave a careful look at her as he began to pace up and down near her. and each found that she was sleeping calmly and soundly, until about eleven o'clock, or maybe a few minutes nearer midnight, a recruit, who had just taken his turn on post, felt his elbows pinioned fast behind him and his carbine almost wrenched from his grasp. He was very muscular, and made a good fight to retain his weapon and use it, but it fell to the ground, and the naked woman plunged down the side of the hill straight through the chapparal into the darkness profound. Bang ! bang ! sounded his carbine just as soon as he could pick it up from the ground where it lay. and bang ! hang ! sounded others, as men half-asleep awakened to the belief that there was a night attack. This firing promptly ceased upon Cushing's orders. There was not the slightest possible use in wasting ammunition, and in besides running the risk of hitting some of our own people. The squaw had escaped, and that THE SQUAW'S ESCAPE. 51 enough. There lay her clothing, and the cocoon-like bundle of rope which had bound her. She had wriggled out of her fasten ings, and sprung upon the sentinel, who was no doubt the least vigilant of all whom she had observed, and had tried to snatch his weapon from him and thus prevent an alarm being given until she had reached the bottom of the hill. All the clothing she had on at the moment when she made her rush upon the sen tinel was an old and threadbare cavalry cape which hardly cov ered her shoulders. Cold and damp and weary, we started on our homeward trip, feeling as spiritless as a brood of half-drowned chickens. Even the Irish had become glum, and could see nothing ridiculous in our mishap a very bad sign. "Blessed are they that expect nothing." We didn't expect and we didn't receive any mercy from our comrades upon getting back to the mess, and the sharp tongue of raillery lost none of its power when the squaw came in close upon our heels, saying that she could not leave her baby, that her breast cried for it. She had told the truth. If we did not believe her story, we could kill her, but let her see her baby again. Her desire was gratified, and no harm came to her. The ordinary stagnation of the post had been interrupted during our absence by the advent of an addition to the little circle of captives, and there was much curiosity to get a good look at the little black-eyed mite which lay cuddled up in the arms of its dusky mother. I have purposely withheld mention of the only lady who shared the life of Camp Grant with us Mrs. Dodds, the wife of Doctor Dodds, our post surgeon, or one of them, because we had two medical officers. She was of a very sweet, gentle disposition, and never once murmured or complained, but exerted herself to make the life of her husband as comfortable as possible. Their quarters had a very cosey look, and one would find it hard to believe that those comfortable chairs were nothing but bar rels sawed out to shape and cushioned and covered with chintz. That lounge was merely a few packing boxes concealed under blankets and mattresses. Everything else in the apartment was on the same scale and made of corresponding materials. There was a manifest determination to do much with little, and much had been done. Mrs. Dodds wore her honors as the belle of the garrison with 52 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOE. becoming graciousness and humility. She received in the kind est spirit the efforts made by all of the rougher sex to render her stay among them pleasant and, if possible, interesting. Not a day passed that did not find her the recipient of some token of regard. It might not always be the most appropriate sort of a thing, but that really made very little difference. She accepted everything and tried to look as if each gift had been the one for which she had been longing during her whole life. She had a rat tlesnake belt, made from one of the biggest and most vicious rep tiles ever seen in the vicinity. She had Apache baskets, war* clubs, playing-cards, flutes, fiddles, and enough truck of the same kind to load an army- wagon. The largest Gila monsters would have been laid at her feet had she not distinctly and emphatically drawn the line at Gila monsters. Tarantulas and centipedes, if properly bottled, were not objectionable, but the Gila monster was more than she could stand, and she so informed intending donors. She has been dead a number of years, but it is hardly likely that she ever forgot until she drew her last breath the days and weeks and months of her existence at Camp Grant. Our own stay at the delightful summer resort had come to an end. Orders received from department headquarters transferred our troop to Tucson, as being a more central location and nearer supplies. Lieutenant Gushing was ordered to take the field and keep it until further orders, which meant that he was to be free to roam as he pleased over any and all sections of the territory infested by the Apaches, and to do the best he could against them. To a soldier of Cushing's temperament this meant a great deal, and it is needless to say that no better selection for such a duty could have been made. We were packed up and out of the post in such quick time that I do not remember whether it was twelve hours or twenty-four. To be sure, we did not have an immense amount of plunder to pack. None the less did we work briskly to carry out orders and get away in the shortest time possible. We had to leave one of our men in the hospital ; he had acci dentally shot himself in the leg, and was now convalescing from the amputation. But the rest were in the saddle and out on the road through the Santa Catalina Canon before you could say Jack Robinson. And not altogether without regret. There was a bright side LEAVING THE POST. 53 to the old rookery, which shone all the more lustrously now that we were saying farewell. We had never felt lonesome by any means. There was always something going on, always something to do, always something to see. The sunrises were gorgeous to look upon at the hour for morn ing stables, when a golden and rosy flush bathed the purple peaks of the Pinalefio, and at eventide there were great banks of crim son and purple and golden clouds in the western horizon which no painter would have dared depict upon canvas. There were opportunities for learning something about miner alogy in the " wash " of the canons, botany on the hill-sides, and insect life and reptile life everywhere. Spanish could be picked up from Mexican guides and packers, and much that was quaint and interesting in savage life learned from an observation of the manners of the captives representatives of that race which the Americans have so frequently fought, so generally mismanaged, and so completely failed to understand. There was much rough work under the hardest of conditions, and the best school for learning how to care for men and ani mals in presence of a sleepless enemy, which no amount of "book Tarnin' " could supply. The distance from Old 'Camp Grant to Tucson, Arizona, over the wagon-road, was fifty-five measured miles. The first half of the journey, the first day's march as far as the Canon del Oro has already been described. From the gloomy walls of the shady canon, in which tradition says gold was found in abun dance in the earliest days of occupation by the Caucasians, the wagons rolled rapidly over the Eight-mile Mesa, over some slightly hilly and sandy country, until after passing the Riito, when Tucson came in sight and the road became firmer. All the way, on both sides of the road, and as far as eye could reach, we had in sight the stately mescal, loaded with lovely velvety flowers ; . the white-plumed Spanish bayonet, the sickly green palo verde, without a leaf ; the cholla, the nopal, the mesquite, whose " beans " were rapidly ripening in the sultry sun, and the majestic "pitahaya," or candelabrum cactus, whose ruby fruit had long since been raided upon and carried off by flocks of bright-winged humming-birds, than which no fairer or more alert can be seen this side of Brazil. The "pitahaya" attains a 54 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. great height in the vicinity of Grant, Tucson, and MacDowell, and one which we measured by its shadow was not far from fifty- five to sixty feet above the ground. On this march the curious rider could see much to be remem bered all the days of his life. Piles of loose stones heaped up by loving hands proclaimed where the Apaches had murdered their white enemies. The projection of a rude cross of mescal or Spanish bayonet stalks was evidence that the victim was a Mexi can, and a son of Holy Mother Church. Its absence was no index of religious belief, but simply of the nationality being American. Of the weird, blood-chilling tales that were narrated as each of these was passed I shall insert only one. It was the story, briefly told, of two young men whose train had been attacked, whose comrades had been put to flight, and who stood their ground resolutely until the arrows and bullets of the foe had ended the struggle. When found, one of the bodies was pierced with sixteen wounds, the other with fourteen. On the left flank, or eastern side, the view was hemmed in for the whole distance by the lofty, pine-clad Sierra Santa Cata- lina ; but to tbe north one could catch glimpses of the summit of the black Final ; to the west there was a yiew over the low- lying Tortolita clear to the dim, azure outlines which, in the neighborhood of the Gila Bend, preserved in commemorative mesa-top the grim features of Montezuma, as Mexican myth fondly averred. A little this side was the site of the " Casa Grande," the old pile of adobe, which has been quite as curious a ruin in the con templation of the irrepressible Yankee of modern days as it was to Coronado and his followers when they approached it under the name of " Chichilticale " more than three centuries and a half ago. Still nearer was the " Picacho," marking the line of the Great Southern Mail road ; at its base the ranch of Charlie Shi bell, where the stages changed teams and travellers stopped to take supper, the scene of as many encounters with the Apaches as any other spot in the whole Southwest. Follow along a little more to the left, and there comes the Santa Teresa Range, just back of Tucson, and credited by rumors as reliable as any ever brought by contraband during the war with being the repository of fabu- ON THE MARCH. 55 lous wealth in the precious metals ; but no one has yet had the Aladdin's lamp to rub and summon the obedient genii who would disclose the secret of its location. Far off to the south rises the glistening cone of the Babo- quivari, the sacred mountain in the centre of the country of the gentle Papagoes, and on the east, as we get down nearer to the Riito, the more massive outlines of the Santa Rita peak overshad owing the town of Tucson, and the white, glaring roof of the beautiful mission ruin of San Xavier del Bac. Within this space marched the columns of the Coronado expe dition, armed to the teeth in all the panoply of grim war, and bent on destruction and conquest ; and here, too, plodded meek friar and learned priest, the sons of Francis or of Loyola, armed with the irresistible weapons of the Cross, the Rosary, and the Sacred Text, and likewise bent upon destruction and conquest the destruction of idols and the conquest of souls. These were no ordinary mortals, whom the imagination may depict as droning over breviary or mumbling over beads. They were men who had, in several cases at least, been eminent in civil pursuits before the whispers of conscience bade them listen to the Divine command, "Give up all and follow Me." Eusebio Kino was professor of mathematics in the University of Ingoldstadt, and had already made a reputation among the scholars of Europe, when he relinquished his titles and position to become a member of the order of Jesuits and seek a place in their missionary ranks on the wildest of frontiers, where he, with his companions, preached the word of God to tribes whose names even were un known in the Court of Madrid. Of these men and their labors, if space allow, we may have something to learn a chapter or two farther on. Just now I find that all my powers of persuasion must be exerted to convince the readers who are still with me that the sand "wash" in which we are floundering is in truth a river, or rather a little riyer the "Riito" the largest confluent of the Santa Cruz. Could you only arrange to be with me, you unbelieving Thomases, when the deluging rains of the summer solstice rush madly down the rugged face of the Santa Catalina and swell this dry sand-bed to the dimensions of a young Missouri, all tales would be more easy for you to swallow. But here we are. That fringe of emerald green in the " bot- 56 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. torn " is the barley land surrounding Tucson those gently wav ing cottonwoods outline the shrivelled course of the Santa Cruz ; those trees with the dark, waxy-green foliage are the pome granates behind Juan Fernandez's corral. There is the massive wall of the church of -San Antonio now; we see streets and houses, singly or in clusters, buried in shade or unsheltered from the vertical glare of the most merciless of suns. Here are pigs staked out to wallow in congenial mire that is one of the charming customs of the Spanish Southwest ; and these ah, yes, these are dogs, unchained and running amuck after the heels of the horses, another most charming custom of the country. Here are " burros" browsing upon tin cans still another in stitution of the country and here are the hens and chickens, and the houses of mud, of one story, flat, cheerless, and monotonous were it not for the crimson "rastras" of chile which, like medi aeval banners, are flung to the outer wall. And women, young and old, wrapped up in "rebosos " and "tapalos," which conceal all the countenance but the left eye ; and men enfolded in cheap poll-parrotty blankets of cotton, busy in leaning against the door-posts and holding up the weight of "sombreros/ 7 as large in diameter as cart-wheels and surrounded by snakes of silver bul lion weighing almost as much as the wearers. The horses are moving rapidly down the narrow street with out prick of spur. The wagons are creaking merrily, pulled by energetic mules, whose efforts need not the urging of rifle-crack ing whip in the hands of skilful drivers. It is only because the drivers are glad to get to Tucson that they explode the long, deadly black snakes, with which they can cut a welt out of the flank or brush a fly from the belly of any animal in their team. All the men are whistling or have broken out in glad carol. Each heart is gay, for we have at last reached Tucson, the commercial entrepot of Arizona and the remoter Southwest Tucson, the Mecca of the dragoon, the Naples of the desert, which one was to see and die ; Tucson, whose alkali pits yielded water sweeter than Well of Zemzen, whose maidens were more charming, whose society was more hospitable, merchants more progressive, magazines better stocked, climate more dreamy, than any town from Santa Fe to Los Angeles ; from Hermosillo, in Sonora, to the gloomy chasm of the Grand Canon with one exception only : its great rival, the thoroughly American town TUCSON AT LAST. 57 of Prescott, in the bosom of the pine forests, amid the granite crags of the foot-hills of the Mogollon. Camp Lowell, as the military post was styled, was located on the eastern edge of the town itself. In more recent years it has been moved seven or eight miles out to where the Riito is a flow ing stream. We took up position close to the quartermaster's corral, erected such tents as could be obtained, and did much solid work in the construction of "ramadas" and other conven iences of branches. As a matter of comfort, all the unmarried officers boarded in the town, of which I shall endeavor to give a succinct but perfectly fair description as it impressed itself upon me during the months of our sojourn in the intervals between scouts against the enemy,, who kept our hands full. My eyes and ears were open to the strange scenes and sounds which met them on every side. Tucson was as foreign a town as if it were in Hayti instead of within our own boundaries. The language, dress, funeral processions, religious ceremonies, feasts, dances, games, joys, perils, griefs, and tribulations of its popu lation were something not to be looked for in the region east f the Missouri Eiver. I noted them all as well as I knew how, kept my own counsel, and give now the resume of my notes of the time. The "Shoo Fly" restaurant, which offered the comforts of a home to the weary wayfarer in Tucson, Arizona, circa 1869, was named on the principle of " lucus a non lucendo" the flies wouldn't shoo worth a cent. Like the poor, they remained always with us. But though they might bedim the legend, "All meals payable in advance/' they could not destroy the spirit of the legend, which was the principle upon which our most charming of landladies, Mrs. "Wallen, did business. Mrs. Wallen deserves more than the hasty reference she is receiving in these pages. She was a most attentive and well- meaning soul, understood the mysteries, or some of the mysteries, of the culinary art, was anxious to please, had never seen better days, and did not so much as pretend to have seen any, not even through a telescope. She was not a widow, as the proprieties demanded under the circumstances all landladies that I've ever read or heard of have been widows but the circumstance that there was a male attached to the name of Wallen did not cut much of a figure in the case, 58 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. as it was a well-understood fact that Mrs. Wallen was a woman of nerve and bound to have her own way in all things. Conse quently, the bifurcated shadow which flitted about in the corral feeding the chickens, or made t its appearance from time to time in the kitchen among the tomato peelings, did not make a very lasting impression upon either the regulars or the "mealers," the two classes of patrons upon whose dollars our good hostess depended for the support of her establishment. One line only will be needed to lay before the reader the inte rior view of the "Shoo Fly." It was a long, narrow, low-ceiled room of adobe, whose walls were washed in a neutral yellowish tint, whose floor was of rammed earth and ceiling of white mus lin. Place here and there, in convenient positions, eight or ten tables of different sizes ; cover them with cheap cloths, cheap china and glass I use the term "cheap" in regard to quality only, and not in regard to the price, which had been dear enough, as everything was in those days of freighting with mule and "bull" teams from Leaven worth and Kit Carson. Place in the centre of each table a lead castor with the obsolete yellow glass bottles ; put one large, cheap mirror on the wall facing the main entrance, and not far from it a wooden clock, which probably served some mysterious purpose other than time-keeping, because it was never wound up. Have pine benches, and home-made chairs, with raw-hide bottoms fastened with strings of the same material to the framework. Make the place look decidedly neat and clean, notwithstanding the flies and the hot alkali dust which penetrated upon the slightest excuse. Bring in two bright, pleas ant-mannered Mexican boys, whose dark complexions were well set off by neat white cotton jackets and loose white cotton trou sers, with sometimes a colored sash about the waist. Give each of these young men a fly-flapper as a badge of office, and the "Shoo Fly" is open for the reception of guests. Napkins designated the seats of the regular boarders. " Meal- ers" were not entitled to such distinction and never seemed to expect it. There was no bill of fare. None was needed. Boarders always knew what they were going to get same old thing. There never was any change during all the time of my acquaintance with the establishment, which, after all is said and done, certainly contrived to secure for its patrons all that the limited market facilities of the day afforded. Beef was not THE "SHOO-FLY" BILL OF FARE. 59 always easy to procure, but there was no lack of bacon, chicken, mutton, and kid meat. Potatoes ranked as luxuries of the first class, and never sold for less than ten cents a pound, and often could not be had for love or money. The soil of Ari zona south of the Gila did not seem to suit their growth, but now that the Apaches have for nearly twenty years been docile in northern Arizona, and left its people free from terror and anxiety, they have succeeded in raising the finest "Murphies" in the world in the damp lava soil of the swales upon the summit of the great Mogollon Plateau. There was plenty of " jerked" beef, savory and palatable enough in stews and hashes ; eggs, and the sweet, toothsome black " frijoles " of Mexico ; tomatoes equal to those of' any part of our country, and lettuce always crisp, dainty, and delicious. For fresh fruit, our main reliance was upon the "burro" trains coming up from the charming oasis of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora a veritable garden of the Hesperides, in which Nature was most lavish with her gifts of honey-juiced oranges, sweet limes, lemons, edible quinces, and luscious apricots ; but the apple, the plum, and the cherry were unknown to us, and the strawberry only occasionally seen. Very frequently the presence of Apaches along the road would cause a panic in trains coming up from the south, and then there would be a fruit famine, during which our sole reliance would be upon the mainstay of boarding-house prosperity stewed peaches and prunes. There were two other articles of food which could be relied upon with reasonable certainty the red beet, which in the "alkali" lands attains a great size, and the black fig of Mexico, which, packed in ceroons of cow's hide, often was carried about for sale. Chile Colorado entered into the composition of every dish, and great, velvety-skinned, delicately flavored onions as large as din ner plates ended the list that is to say, the regular list. On some special occasion there would be honey brought in from the Tia Juana Ranch in Lower California, three or four hundred miles westward, and dried shrimps from the harbor of Guaymas. In the harbor of Guaymas there are oysters, too, and they are not bad, although small and a trifle coppery to the taste of those who try them for the first time. Why we never had any of them was, I suppose, on account of the difficulty of getting them through 60 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. in good condition without ice, so we had to be content with the canned article, which was never any too good. From the Rio Grande in the neighborhood of El Paso there came the "pasas," or half-dried grape, in whose praise too much could not be said. The tables were of pine, of the simplest possible construction. All were bad enough, but some were a trifle more rickety than others. The one which wobbled the least was placed close to the north side of the banqueting-hall, where the windows gave the best "view." Around this Belshazzarian board assembled people of such con sideration as Governor Safford, Lieutenant-Governor Bashford, Chief-Justice John Titus, Attorney-General MacCaflrey, the gen ial Joe Wasson, Tom Ewing, and several others. I was on a number of occasions honored with a seat among them, and en joyed at one and the same moment their conversation and the " view " of which I have spoken. There was a foreground of old tin tomato cans, and a middle distance of chicken feathers and chile peppers, with a couple of " burros " in the dim perspective, and the requisite flitting of lights and shadows in the foliage of one stunted mesquite-bush, which sheltered from the vertical rays of the sun the crouching form of old Juanita, who was energetically pounding between smooth stones the week's washing of the household, and supply ing in the gaudy stripes of her bright " serape " the amount of color which old-school critics used to maintain was indispensable to every landscape. Juanita was old and discreet, but her thoughts were not alto gether on the world to come. Her face was ordinarily plastered with flour-paste, the cosmetic of the Southwest. Why this at tention to her toilet, the wisest failed to tell: Often did I assure her that nothing could improve her complexion a statement not to be controverted and never did she fail to rebuke me with her most bewitching smile, and the words, " Ah ! Don Juan, you're such a flatterer/' The gentlemen whose names I have just given are nearly all dead or so well advanced in years and dignity that what I have to say now will not sound like flattery. They had each and all travelled over a great deal of the earth's surface, and several of them were scholars of ripe learning. I was much younger then than I am now, and of course the attainments of men so much THE "SHOO FLY'S" PATRONS. 61 older than myself made a deep impression upon me, but even to this day 1 would place the names of Titus and Bashford. in the list of scholars of erudition whom I have known, and very high up in the list, too. The remainder of the patrons seemed to be about evenly di vided between the cynical grumblers who, having paid their score with regularity, arrogated to themselves the right to asperse the viands ; and the eulogists who, owing to temporary financial em barrassments, were unable to produce receipts, and sought to appease their not by any means too hard-hearted landlady by the most fulsome adulation of the table and its belongings. Like the brokers of Wall Street who are bulls to-day and bears to-morrow, it not infrequently happened among the " Shoo Ely's " patrons that the most obdurate growler of last week changed front and assumed position as the Advocatus Diaboli of this. But, take them for all in all, they were a good-hearted, whole- souled lot of men, who had roughed it and smoothed it in all parts of the world, who had basked in the smiles of Fortune and had not winced at her frown ; a trifle too quick on the trig ger, perhaps, some of them, to be perfectly well qualified to act as Sunday-school superintendents, yet generous to the comrade in distress and polite to all who came near them. The Western man the Pacific Sloper especially is much more urbane and courte ous under such circumstances than his neighbor who has grown up on the banks of the Delaware or Hudson. There was bitter rivalry between Mrs. Wallen and Mr. Neugass, the proprietor of the " Palace " a rivalry which diffused itself among their respec tive adherents. I make the statement simply to preserve the record of the times, that the patrons of the " Shoo Fly " never let go an oppor tunity to insinuate that the people to be met at the "Palace" were, to a large extent, composed of the " nouveaux riches." There was not the slightest foundation for this, as I can testify, because I afterward sat at Neugass's tables, when Mrs. Wallen had retired from business and gone into California, and can re call no difference at all in the character of the guests. Tucson enjoyed the singular felicity of not possessing any thing in the shape of a hotel. Travellers coming to town, and not provided with letters which would secure them the hospital- 62 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. ity of private houses, craved the privilege of " making down " their blankets in the most convenient corral, and slept till early morn, undisturbed save by the barking of dogs, which never ceased all through the night, or the crowing of loud-yoiced chanticleers, which began ere yet the dawn had signalled with its first rosy flush from the peak of the Santa Rita. It was the customary thing for wagon trains to halt and go into camp in the middle of the plaza in front of the cathedral church of San Antonio, and after the oxen or mules had been tied to the wheels, the drivers would calmly proceed to stretch out tired limbs in the beautiful moonlight. I never could see the advantage of such a state of affairs, and felt that it belittled the importance of the town, which really did a very large business with the surrounding country for hundreds of miles. There are always two and even three different ways of looking at the same proposition, and to Bob Crandall and Vet Mowry this manner of camping "a la belle etoile" was the one thing "to which they pointed with pride." It was proof of the glorious climate enjoyed by Tucson. Where else in the whole world, sir, could a man camp out night after night all the year round ? Was it in Senegambia ? No, sir. In Nova Zembla ? No, sir. In Hong Kong ? No, sir. In Ireland ? but by this time one could cut off the button, if necessary, and break away. So there were only three places in which people could get acquainted with one another in the "Shoo Fly" or "Palace" restaurants ; in the gambling resorts, which never closed, night or day, Sunday or Monday ; and at the post-office, in the long line of Mexicans and Americans slowly approaching the little square window to ask for letters. For the convenience of my readers and myself, I will take the liberty of presenting some of my dead and gone friends in the " Shoo Fly," where we can have seats upon which to rest, and tables upon which to place our elbows, if we so desire. But first a word or two more about Tucson itself. It was in those days the capital of the Territory of Arizona, and the place of residence of most of the Federal officials. Its geographical situation was on the right bank of the pretty little stream .called the Santa Cruz, a mile or more above where it ran into the sands. In round figures, it was on the 32d degree of north latitude, and not far from the 112th degree west from TUCSON AND ITS SITUATION. 6$ Greenwich. The valley of the Santa Cruz, although not much over a mile and a half wide, is wonderfully fertile, and will yield bountifully of all cereals, as well as of the fruits of the south temperate or north tropical climes, and could easily have sup ported a much larger population, but on account of the bitter and unrelenting hostilities waged by the Apaches, not more than 3,200 souls could be claimed, although enthusiasts often deluded themselves into a belief in much higher figures, owing to the almost constant presence of trains of wagons hauled by patient oxen or quick-moving mules, or ' ' carretas " drawn by the philo sophical donkey or "burro" from Sonora. The great prairie- schooners all the way from the Missouri River made a very imposing appearance, as, linked two, and even three, together, they rolled along with their heavy burdens, to unload at the warehouses of the great merchants, Lord & Williams, Tully, Ochoa & De Long, the Zeckendorfs, Fish & Collingwood, Leo- poldo Garrillo, or other of the men of those days whose trans actions ran each year into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Streets and pavements there were none ; lamps were unheard of ; drainage was not deemed necessary, and water, when not bought from the old Mexican who hauled it in barrels in a di lapidated cart from the cool spring on the bishop's farm, was obtained from wells, which were good and sweet in the first months of their career, but generally became so impregnated with "alkali" that they had to be abandoned ; and as lumber was worth twenty- five cents a foot, and therefore too costly to be used in covering them, they were left to dry up of their own accord, and remain a menace to the lives and limbs of belated pedestrians. There was no hint in history or tradition of a sweeping of the streets, which were every bit as filthy as those of New York. The age of the garbage piles was distinctly defined by geological strata. In the lowest portion of all one could often find arrow heads and stone axes, indicatiye of a pre-Columbian origin ; super imposed conformably over these, as the geologists used to say, were skins of chile Colorado, great pieces of rusty spurs, and other re liquiae of the " Conquistadores," while high above all, stray cards, tomato cans, beer bottles, and similar evidences of a higher and nobler civilization told just how long the Anglo-Saxon had called the territory his own. This filthy condition of the streets gave rise to a weird system 64 ON THE BORDER WITH CROOK. of topographical designation. " You want to find the Governor's ? Wa'al, podner, jest keep right down this yere street past the Pal ace saloon, till yer gets ter the second manure-pile on yer right ; then keep to yer left past the post-office, V yer'll see a dead burro in th' middle of th' road, V a mesquite tree 'n yer lef , near a Mexican ' tendajon ' (small store), V jes' beyond that 's the Gov.'s outfit. Can't miss it. Look out fur th' dawg down ter Munoz's corral ; he 's a salviated son ov a gun." It took some time for the ears of the " tenderfoot " just out from the States to become habituated to the chronology of that portion of our vast domain. One rarely heard months, days, or weeks mentioned. The narrator of a story had a far more con venient method of referring back to dates in which his auditory might be interested. " Jes' about th' time Pete Kitchen's ranch was jumped " which wasn't very satisfactory, as Pete Kitchen's ranch was always getting " jumped." " Th' night afore th' Mar- icopa stage war tuck in." "A week or two arter Winters made his last < killin' ' in th' Dragoons." " Th' last fight down to th' Picach." "Th' year th' Injuns run off Tully, Ochoa V DeLong bull teams." Or, under other aspects of the daily life of the place, there would be such references as, " Th' night after Duffield drawed his gun on Jedge Titus " a rather uncertain reference, since Duffield was always " drawin' his gun" on somebody. " Th' time of th' feast (i.e., of Saint Augustine, the patron saint of the town), when Bob Orandall broke th' ' Ohusas ' game fur six hundred dollars," and other expressions of similar tenor, which replaced the recollections of " mowing time," and " harvest," and "sheep- shearing " of older communities. Another strain upon the unduly excitable brain lay in the im possibility of learning exactly how many miles it was to a given point. It wasn't " fifty miles," or " sixty miles," or "just a trifle beyond the Cienaga, and that 's twenty-five miles," but rather,